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UNITEdHsTATES OF AMERICA. 



ROMAN CATHOLICISM 



SCRIPTURALLY CONSIDERED; 



OR, 



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THE 



GKEAT APOSTASY 



BY / 

CHAELES P. JONES, 

OF THE NORTH CAROLINA CONFERENCE 



; Search the Scriptures."— Jesus. 
To the law and to the testimony. ' ' — Isaiah. 



iNEW YORK: 
PUBLISHED BY M. W. DODD, 
No. 59 CHAMBERS STREET, 
Rear of the Park. 

1856. 



T be Library 
op Congress 

WASHINGTON 



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entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by 

M. W. D ODD, 

m the Clerk's Office of the District Court, for the Southern District of New York. 



E. O. JENKINS, 

No. 26 Feankfoet Steeet. 



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PEEFAOE. 

The doctrines in controversy between Protestants 
and Eoman Catholics involve the truth of God and 
the salvation of souls. They also involve the progress 
and well-being of society, as they affect civil and re- 
ligious liberty. They merit, therefore, at our hands, 
an earnest, searching, thorough investigation. If the 
Church • of Eome hold, as she affirms, the only true 
doctrine, and if out of her pale there is no salvation, 
it behooves every one to know it. If, however, she is 
in error, has " fallen away," is the Great Apostasy, so 
clearly revealed and graphically described in prophecy, 
it is equally important that all should know it. 

It must be clear to every mind, and is, perhaps, ad- 
mitted by all, that there must be some rule, some in- 
fallible standard, to which all questions in dispute may 
be appealed for final adjudication. The Bible is that 
standard. Tradition is uncertain, fallible; contradicts 
God's Word and itself. To the Bible, therefore, we 
come with all the questions at issue, and in its clear, 
heavenly, infallible light examine them, and in its holy, 

unerring balance weigh them. Let the world judge 

(iii) 



IV PREFACE. 

the entire competency of the tribunal, and of the em- 
phatic, unequivocal response returned. 

Long and obstinate has been the controversy ; and 
everything, it would seem, has been said that could be 
said ; and most ably and fully have Protestants shown 
and vindicated the truth of God. But every age, every 
generation, has some peculiarities, which, with new 
evolutions and assaults of the foe, make it necessary to 
buckle on again the armor of God, and fight for the 
faith once delivered to the saints. This is especially 
so at the present time : Eome is marshaling her hosts 
and sending out her legions to overrun and subjugate 
this fair heritage of ours. She is bold, defiant, and 
sanguine of success. She must be met with a spirit of 
unshrinking fidelity to God and his truth ; her true 
character as Antichrist portrayed, and her intolerant, 
persecuting, tyrannical spirit exhibited to the patriots 
and Christians of this land. This the Author has 
essayed to do in the following pages. How far he has 
succeeded an intelligent community must judge. He 
trusts, however, that, to some extent, at least, he has 
filled the desideratum which just now is felt — has met, 
partially though it be, the present demands of the 
Church and the Age. 

Information has been drawn from every source 
within reach of the Author. Eoman Catholic and 
Protestant theologians and writers have been carefully 
examined ; and no doctrine has been stated, no position 
taken touching the practice and claims of Eome, but 
that the former define and promulgate as dogmas and 
usages of their Church. Milner's End of Controversy, 
Challoner's Catholic Christian, Dens' Theology, The 



PREFACE. V 

Eoman Catechism, The Prayer Book, The Christian's 
Guide to Heaven, History of the Council of Trent, by 
Pallivicini, Grahan's History of the Church, Brownson's 
Eeview, &c, &c, — standard works — clear exponents 
and emphatic defenders of the doctrines and practice 
of Eome, have bee a relied on as authentic, and freely 
used. Extensive quotations are given from them in 
the body of the work. 

The Author is greatly indebted to Edgar's Variations 
of Popery, Bungener's History of the Council of Trent, 
Old Christianity against Papal Novelties, by Ousley, 
Master-Key to Popery, Sime's History of the Inqui- 
sition, D'Aubigne's History of the Eeformation, &c. 
Edgar's Variations and Bungener's History, are invalu- 
able works, and should be in the library of every Pro- 
testant. 

The critical reader may discover a want of uniform- 
ity in the style. The work was written in the midst 
of heavy pastoral labors. Over nine hundred white 
members, and one thousand colored, had to be cared 
for and served. One hundred and fifty miles were 
usually travelled, monthly, and twenty-five sermons de- 
livered. Thousands of pages were read in the buggy, 
while travelling from appointment to appointment — 
thoughts were suggested — arguments elaborated ; and 
then, at "the home," in the bosom of the family, or in 
the "preacher's room," the pen would be hastily caught 
up, and the thought or argument written out. Much 
of it appears as first written. Moreover, intense study 
of an author, say Milner or Bungener, may have 
given a tinge to the style. The work, however, was 
not written for critics, but for the masses ; the bone 



VI PREFACE. 

and sinew, the nerve and soul of this great country. 
To enlighten them on a subject infinitely momentous, 
was the object had in view — the motive that moved to 
write at all, and to write as the Author has written. 
If this end be gained, he is content, happy. 

And now with unaffected diffidence, but with a 
sincere prayer to God that it may be an instrumentality 
in accomplishing good, this humble effort in the cause 
of truth is sent forth to the world. 

THE AUTHOR 

Lumberton, N. C, July 29, 1856. 



COISTTEISTTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PROPHETIC ANNOUNCEMENT AND DESCRIPTION OF THE 
GREAT APOSTASY. 

Falling away— Man of Sin— Miracles and Lying Wonders— Departure from the 
Faith— Forbidding to Marry— Beast with Seven Heads and Ten Horns — Beast 
with Two Horns— Corrupt Woman— Babylon the Great. - 11-41 



CHAPTER JX 

SOURCE AND RULE OF FAITH. 

Necessity of a Ruler — The Bible — Tradition— The Fathers and the Bible against 
Rome — Apocrypha no part of the Canonical Books — Scripture given for every 
Man — Should be Translated into every Tongue. 42-71 

CHAPTER III. 

DOCTRINES OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. 
Infallibility. 

Fundamental Doctrine— Where does it Reside ?— Six Theories— Not in the Pope — 
Not in Councils-General — Not in a Council and Pope at its Head — Not in the 
whole Church — A Fallacy — Unscriptural. 72 



Auricular Confession. 

AH must Confess— Secretly— All Sins — Unscriptural— A Means of Corruption, 116 

(vii) 



V1U CONTENTS. 

Priestly Absolution. 

Penance a Sacrament — Consists in the Absolving "Words of the Priest — The Priest a 
Visible Saviour — No power to Absolve given to the Apostles — The Tenor of Scrip- 
tures—Teaching of Jesus — Practice and Teaching of the Apostles— Fathers against 
it— Admission of Theologians and Popes. 121 

Indulgences. 

Held by the Church — Decreed by Councils — In conflict with Scripture, with tho 
Fathers, and with Absolution. .-•-.-•.------ 143 

Transubstantiation. 

Defined by the Council of Trent — Eeal Presence — Unscriptural — Unphilosophical 
— Contradicts the Senses — Absurd — Dr. Tillotson — The Fathers — History of it — 
Decreed in 1215 — Leads to Materialism, Infidelity, Idolatry — Exalts the Priest 
above God— Blasphemous — Subverts the Gospel — Fulfils Prophecy. - - 155 

Extreme Unction. 

A Sacrament — Without Scripture Foundation — St. James — Not Known and Prac- 
ticed in the Primitive Church — Against Absolution, and Indulgences, and Trans- 
substantiation — A Farce, or they are a Cheat. ------ 184 

Purgatory. 

To be Held by the Church — Without Anathema — Milner's view — Abraham's Bosom 
Purgatory — Purgation by Suffering — Scriptural Authority Examined — No Mid- 
dle State — Purgatory a Novelty — The Fathers — Gives the Priest power over Souls 
in Eternity — -Against Absolution, Indulgences, Transubstantiation, Extreme Unc- 
tion — Merits of Suffering — Another Gospel. 194 



CHAPTER IV. 

PRACTICE OF THE CHURCH OF ROME 

She is Idolatrous. 

Practice a Test of Doctrine — Tree Known by its Fruits — Worship of the Host — 
Veneration of Images and Relics — Second command Suppressed — False Transla- 
tion — Worship of Saints, Angels, and the Virgin. 225 

She is Intolerant. 

Inalienable Rights— Self-Defence — Anathemas— Oath of Bishops, Priests, Popes, 
Jesuits — Bull against Bible Societies — Language of Bishops and Popes — Brown- 
son. --- ,---. 244 



CONTENTS. IX 

She is Persecuting and Blood- Thirsty. 

Decrees of Councils, Popes, Emperors— Theologians— Effect of Decree— Walden- 
sian Butchery — St. Bartholomew's — Irish Persecution — Inquisition — History — 
"Work of Blood. 262 



She is Corrupt. 

Abrogation of Oaths— No Faith with Heretics — Celibacy and the Confessional. 308 

CHAPTER V. 

SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL SUPREMACY OF THE POPE. 
Spiritual Supremacy. 

Four Theories— Without Scripture Foundation— The Rock— The Keys— Peter no 
Pope — Never at Rome — If Pope, his Prerogatives could not be Transferred — 
Were not transferred— The Chain Broken — An Assumption — Prophecy Ful- 
filled. - 321 

Temporal Supremacy. 

Predicated of Spiritual — Popes— Brownson — Gallican and Jesuit Yiews — Claim and 
Possession different — Pitt's Queries — Doctrine of the Church — Brownson — Last 
Link of Evidence— Summing up. - 347 

CHAPTER VI. 

END OF THE GREAT APOSTASY; OR, DESTRUCTION OF 
THE MAN OF SIN. 

End Revealed — Instrumentalities — Bible— Preaching— Civil Government— Mil- 
lennium Dawn. 381 



THE GREAT APOSTASY. 



CHAPTER I 

PEOPHETIC ANNOUNCEMENT AND DESCRIPTION OF 
THE GEEAT APOSTASY. 

" Let no man deceive you by any means ; for that day shall not 
come except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin 
be revealed, the son of perdition. 

" Who opposeth aod exalteth himself above all that is called God, 
so that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself 
that he is God."— 2 Thess. ii. 3, 4. 

Heee is a most solemn announcement and graphic 
description of a great Apostasy which was to rise up 
in, spread through, and afflict and curse the Church. 
The terms used leave no doubt that the defection would 
be in and of the Church. The revelation and uprising 
of the Man of Sin, evolved of the apostasy, or the 
apostasy itself, would not only be in the Church and 
in the name of the Church, but in the name of the true 
religion, and of God. He, the Son of Perdition, would 
wear the habiliments, claim the name, and glory in the 
prerogatives of the spouse of Christ, and sit in the 
temple of God, as God and above God. 

The church at Thessalonica had been taught, it seems, 
erroneous views in reference to the second coming of 
Christ. The faith and hope of some may have waver- 
ed. To teach them the true doctrine, and reassure 

(ii) 



12 THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

their faith, and especially to unveil the future and 
put upon imperishable record the sad truth that a fear- 
ful falling away would sweep oyer and blight the fair 
heritage of God, the Apostle addressed them and the 
general Church this warning ; delivered this prophecy. 

Has this remarkable prediction been fulfilled ? Has 
there come a falling away ? Has the Man of Sin been 
revealed? and does he sit in the temple of God show- 
ing himself that he is God ? These are not only per- 
tinent and interesting questions, but questions vitally 
connected with, and deeply affecting the weal of the 
Church, and the highest interest of man in time and in 
eternity. To answer these and kindred inquiries ac- 
cording to truth and history, is my earnest desire and 
honest purpose, in examining this subject. God help 
us find the truth, and answer as He would answer ! 

That this prophecy has been, and is now being ful- 
filled ; that the falling away has taken place and now 
curses the Church and the world ; that the Man of Sin 
has been revealed, and now "sitteth in the temple of 
God, showing himself that he is God," I fully believe. 
The Eoman Catholic Church, I as fully belie ve, is clearly 
pointed out in this brief sentence, and her character 
drawn in lines of living light. Or, the Church of 
Eome meets and fulfils this prophecy to the very letter. 
She, as I shall show, has fallen away from the teach- 
ing of Jesus Christ — the pure faith and simple prac- 
tice of the Gospel. She is revealed — stands forth 
to-day as the "Man of Sin," for she is corrupt. She 
"opposeth and exalteth herself above God," — she 
rejects the Bible as a sufficient rule of faith, and perse- 
cutes and puts to death the children of God. She 



MAN OF SIN". 13 

creates God out of a wafer, and assumes universal, 
spiritual and temporal supremacy over this world " as 
Grod." She " sitteth in the temple of God," — is an 
ecclesiastical organization, and proclaims that she is 
the only true Church. 

" This apostasy," says, Dr. Clarke, " all concurrent marks and 
characters will justify us in charging upon the Church of Rome. 
The true Christian worship is the worship of the one only God, 
through the one only mediator, the man Christ Jesus ; and from this 
worship the Church of Rome has most notoriously departed, by 
substituting other mediators, and invo eating and adoring saints and 
angels : nothing is apostasy if idolatry be not. And are not the 
members of the Church of Rome guilty of idolatry in the worship 
of images, in the adoration of the host, in the invocation of angels 
and saints, and in the oblation of prayers and praises to the Yirgin 
Mary, as much or more than to God blessed forever ? This is the 
grand corruption of the Christian Church ; this is the apostasy, as 
it is emphatically called, and deserves to be called ; which was 
not only predicted by St. Paul, but by the prophet Daniel like- 
wise." 

This view is confirmed by the description of the 
apostle in the 8th, 9th and 10th verses : 

"And then shall that wicked be revealed, whose coming is after the 
working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, 
and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish." 

The Church of Eome has ever claimed the power to 
work miracles. In the Life of St. Patrick, eagerly read 
by "the faithful," a very great number of miracles are re- 
corded, which are affirmed to have been wrought by him. 
The Life of St. Xavier, also, is filled up with accounts 
of miracles,, wrought by a word or touch of his, as great 
and more numerous than those of our Saviour. Dr. 
Milner, in his " End of Controversy," endorses them all. 



14 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

The "English Saints" is disgustingly full of them. 
Eelics of saints, paintings and images, priests and 
people proclaim to the world possess miracle-working 
power. Who has not heard of weeping, winking Ma- 
donas, and the holy coat of Treves ? 

" Affixed to the wall over the vessels of holy water" 
— " water made holy by being exorcised by the priests, 
mixed with salt, and then prayed over" — "in the 
church of St. Carlo, in Eome," the following advertise- 
ment is seen, and may be read of all: 

" The church proposes holy water as a remedy and assistant in 
many circumstances, both spiritual and corporeal, but especially in 
these following. Its spiritual uses are : 

"1. It drives away devils from places and persons. 

" 2. It affords assistance against fears and diabolical illusions. 

"3. It cancels venial sins. 

" 4. It imparts strength to resist temptations. 

" 5. It drives away wicked thoughts. 

" 6. It preserves safely from the passing snares of the devil. 

" 7. It obtains the favor and presence of the Holy Ghost. 

" Its corporeal uses are : 

" 1. It is a remedy against barrenness, both in women and beasts. 

" 2. It is a preservative from sickness. 

" 3. It heals the infirmities of the mind and body. 

" 4. It purifies infected air, and drives away plague and contagion." 

" This is the substance, though not a literal or full translation of 
the document."* 

There are wells in Ireland, called by Eomanists 
" holy wells," which are said to have miraculous vir- 
tues. Rev. Dr. Murray thus describes what he saw at 
one of them : 

" There was a vast crowd of poor-looking and diseased people 
around it. Some were praying, some shouting ; many were up in 

* Kerwan's Letters to Taney. 



LYING WONDERS. 15 

the trees which surrounded it. All these trees were laden, in all 
their branches, with shreds of cloth of every possible variety and 
color. I inquired what all this meant. I was told : ' This is St. 
John's well, and these people come here to get cured.' But what 
do those rags mean, hanging on the trees ? I was told that the 
people who were not immediately cured, tied a piece of their gar- 
ments on some limb of the trees to keep the good saint of the well 
in mind of their application. And judging from the number of 
pieces tied on the trees, I inferred that the number that went away 
cured were very few." 

The following extract, quoted by Dr. Murray from 
an eye-witness, gives an account of a festival at St. 
Patrick's Well, which occurs every mid-summer's eve : 

" The men and women come bare-footed, and the heads of all were 
bound round with handkerchiefs. Some were running in circles, 
some were kneeling in groups, some were singing in wild concert, 
some were jumping about like maniacs at the end of an old building. 
When we had somewhat recovered from the first surprise which the 
(to us) unaccountably fantastic actions of the crowd had given us, 
we endeavored to trace the progress of some of these deluded vota- 
ries through all the mazes of their mystic penance. The first object 
of them all appeared to be, the ascent of the steepest and most 
rugged part of the rock, up which both men and women crawled 
their painful way on their hands and bare knees. The men's clothes 
were all made so as to accommodate their knees with all the sharp- 
ness of the pointed rock ; and the poor women, many of them young 
and beautiful, took incredible pains to prevent their petticoats from 
affording any defence against its torturing asperities. Covered with 
dust, and perspiration, and blood, they at last reached the summit 
of the rock, where, in a rude sort of chair hewn out of the stone, 
sat an old man, probably one of their priesthood, who seemed to be 
the representative of St. Patrick, and the high-priest of this relig- 
ious frenzy. In his hat each of the penitents deposited a half- 
penny, after which he turned them round a certain number of times, 
listened to the long catalogue of their offences, and dictated to them 
the penance they were to undergo or perform. Then they descended 



16 THE GEE AT APOSTASY. 

the rock by another path, but in the same manner and posture, 
equally careful to be cut by the flints, and to suffer as much as 
possible. The penitents now returned to the use of their feet, and 
commenced a running sort of Irish jiggish walk round several 
cairns or heaps of stones, erected at different spaces : this lasted 
for some time. Suddenly they would prostrate themselves before 
the cairn and ejaculate some hasty prayers." " But the most re- 
markable, and doubtless the most efficient of the ceremonies, was 
reserved for the last ; and surely nothing was ever devised by man 
which more forcibly evinced how low our nature can descend. 
Around the largest of the wells, which was in a building very much, 
to common eyes, like a stable, all those who had performed their 
penances were assembled — some dressing, some undressing, many 
stark naked. A certain number of them were admitted at a time 
into this holy well, and there men and women of every age bathed 
promiscuously without any covering. They undressed before bath- 
ing, and performed the whole business of the toilet afterwards in 
the open air, in the midst of the crowd." 

Are not these — and they are but the thousandth 
part of what might be given — " signs and lying won- 
ders after the working of Satan "? And do they not 
mark out, reveal to us, the Church of Eome as "that 
wicked," the son of perdition? What else, who else, 
so clearly, fully meets and fulfils the prophecy ? 

This view is further confirmed by the Apostle's 
language to Timothy, 1 Tim. iv. 1 — 3 : 

" Now the spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some 
shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doc- 
trines of devils ; speaking lies in hypocrisy ; having their conscience 
seared with a hot iron ; forbidding to marry aud commanding to 
abstain from meats." 

The departure from the faith is evidently the same as 
the falling away just described; the same great apostasy. 
Other and distinctive marks are here brought out. 



DEPARTURE FROM THE FAITH. 17 

Some of the causes of the defection are mentioned : 
" Giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of dev- 
ils; and speaking lies in hypocrisy." Its cauterizing 
effects on the apostates, " Having their conscience 
seared with a hot iron ;" and their authority, " Forbid- 
ding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats," 
are revealed. Bishop Newton's criticism on, and ex- 
position of this passage, are so clear and satisfactory 
that I heartily adopt them, and give them to the reader 
in preference to anything I might say : 

" I. The first thing to be considered is, the apostasy here pre- 
dicted : ' Some shall depart, or rather apostatize from the faith/ 
An apostasy from the faith may be either total or partial ; either 
when we renounce the whole, or when we deny some principal and 
essential article of it. It is not every error, or every heresy, that is 
apostasy from the faith. It is a revolt in a principal and essential 
article when we worship God by an image or representation, or 
when we worship other beings besides God, and pray unto other 
mediators besides the one Mediator between God and man — the man 
Christ Jesus. This is the very essence of Christian worship, to wor- 
ship the one true God, through the one true Christ ; and to worship 
any other God or any other mediator is apostasy and rebellion 
against God and against Christ. Such is the nature of apostasy 
from the faith ; and it is implied that this apostasy shall be general, 
and affect great numbers. For, though it be said only some shall 
apostatize, yet by some, here, many are understood. The original 
word frequently signifies a multitude ; and there are abundant in- 
stances in Scripture where it is used in that sense, as the reader 
may perceive from John vi. 64-66 ; Rom. x. 17 ; 1 Cor. x. 5, 6. 
This apostasy may be general and extensive, and include many, but 
not all. 

" II. It is more particularly shown wherein the apostasy should 
consist, in the following words : Giving heed to seducing spirits and 
doctrines of devils ; or rather : ' Giving heed to erroneous spirits 
and doctrines concerning demons. 1 Spirits seem to be much the 



18 THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

same in sense as doctrines ; the latter word may be considered as 
explanatory of the former ; and error sometimes signifying idolatry, 
erroneous doctrines may comprehend idolatrous as well as false doc- 
trines. But it is still further added, for explanation, that these 
doctrines should be doctrines of devils or of demons, where the geni- 
tive case is not to be taken actively, as if demons were the authors 
of these doctrines, but passively, as if demons were the subject of 
these doctrines. In Jer. x. 8 ; Acts xiii. 12 ; Heb. vi. 2, the 
genitive case is used in this manner ; and, by the same construction, 
doctrines rf demons are doctrines about or concerning demons. This 
is, therefore, a prophecy that the idolatrous theology of demons, 
professed by the Gentiles, should be revived among Christians. 
Demons, according to the theology of the Gentiles, were middle 
powers between the gods and mortal men ; and were regarded as 
mediators and agents between the gods and men. Of these demons 
there were accounted two kinds : one kind were the souls of men 
deified or canonized after death ; the other kind were such as had 
never been the souls of men, nor ever dwelt in mortal bodies. These 
latter demons may be paralleled with a.ngels, as the former may with 
canonized saints ; and as we Christians believe there are good and 
evil angels, so did the Gentiles that there were good and evil demons. 
It appears, then, as if the doctrine of demons, which prevailed so 
long in the heathen world, was to be revived and established in the 
Christian Church. And is not the worship of saints and angels 
now, in all respects, the same that the worship of demons was in 
former times ? The name only is different : the thing is essentially 
the same. The heathens looked upon their demons as mediators 
and intercessors between God and men ; and are not the saints 
and angels regarded in the same light by many professed Chris- 
tians? The promoters of this worship were sensible that it was 
the same, and that the one succeeded the other ; and as the wor- 
ship is the same, so likewise it is performed with the same cere- 
monies. Nay. the very same temples, the very same images, the 
very same altars, which once were consecrated to Jupiter and the 
other demons, are now consecrated to the Virgin Mary and other 
saints. The very same titles and inscriptions are ascribed to 
both : the very same prodigies and miracles are related of these as 
of those. 



DEPARTURE FROM THE FAITH. 19 

JH. Such an apostasy as this — of reviving the doctrines of demons, 
and worshipping the dead — was not likely to take place immedi- 
ately ; it should prevail and prosper in the latter days. The phrase 
of the latter times or days, or the last times or days, signifies any 
time that was yet to come ; but denotes more particularly the times 
of Christianity. The times of Christianity may properly be called 
the latter times or days, or the lost times or days, because it is the 
last of all God's revelations to mankind. Heb. i. 22. 

" IV. Another remarkable peculiarity of this prophecy is, the 
solemn and emphatic manner in which it is delivered. The Spirit 
spcaketh expressly. By the Spirit is meant the Holy Spirit of God, 
which inspired the prophets and apostles. The Spirit speaking 
expressly may signify his speaking precisely and certainly, not 
obscuredly and involvedly, as he is wont to speak in the prophets ; 
or it may be said, the Spirit speaJccth expressly, when he speaks in 
express words in some place or other of Divine Writ ; and the Spirit 
hath spoken the same thing in express words before in the prophecy' 
of Daniel. Daniel has foretold, in express words, the worship of 
new demons or demi-gods : Dan. xi. 38. The mauzzim of Daniel 
are the same as the demons of St. Paul ; God's protectors, or saints' 
protectors, defenders and guardians of mankind. This, therefore, is 
a prophecy, not merely dictated by private suggestion and inspirsr 
tion, but taken out of the written Word. It is a prophecy, not only 
of St. Paul's, but of Daniel's, too ; or rather of Daniel, confirmed 
and approved by St. Paul. 

"V. The apostle proceeds,verse 2, to describe by what means and by 
what persons this apostasy should be propagated and established in 
the world. Speaking lies in hypocrisy, fyc. ; or rather, through the 
hypocrisy of liars, having their conscience, &c. ; for the preposition 
rendered in, frequently signifies through or by. Liars, too, or speak- 
ing lies, cannot possibly be joined with the original word rendered 
some, and that rendered giving heed, because they are in the nomi- 
native case, and in this in the genitive. Neither can it well be joined 
in the construction with the word rendered devils, or demons ; for 
how can demons or devils be said to speak lies in hypocrisy, and to 
have their conscience seared, fyc. ? It is plain, then, that the great 
apostasy of the latter times was to prevail through the hypocrisy of 
liars, fyc. And has not the great idolatry of Christians, and the 



20 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

worship of the dead particularly, been diffused and advanced in the 
world by such instruments and agents ? by fabulous books, forged 
under the names of the apostles and saints, by fabulous legends 
of their lives ; by fabulous miracles, ascribed to their relics ; by 
fabulous dreams and revelations, and even by fabulous saints, who 
never existed but in imagination. 

" VI. Verse 3. Forbidding to marry, fyc. This is a further char- 
acter of the promoters of this apostasy. The same hypocritical 
liars who should promote the worship of demons should also pro- 
hibit lawful marriage. The monks were the first who brought a 
single life into repute ; they were the first, also, who revived and 
promoted the worship of demons. One of the primary and most 
essential laws and constitutions of all monks was the profession of 
a single life ; and it is equally clear that the monks had the princi- 
pal share in promoting the worship of the dead. The monks, then, 
were the principal promoters of the worship of the dead in former 
times. And who are the great patrons and advocates of the same 
worship now ? Are not their legitimate successors and descendants 
the monks, and priests, and bishops of the Church of Eome ? And 
do not they also profess and recommend a single life, as well as the 
worship of saints and angels ? Thus have the worship of demons 
and prohibition of marriage constantly gone hand in hand together ; 
and as they who maintain one, maintain the other, so it is no less 
remarkable that they who disclaim the one, disclaim the other. 

" YII. The last mark and character of these men is : Command- 
ing to abstain from meats, fyc. The same lying hypocrites who 
should promote the worship of demons, should not only prohibit 
lawful marriage, but likewise impose unnecessary abstinence from 
meats ; and these, too, as indeed it is fit they should, usually go 
together as constituent parts of the same hypocrisy. It is as much 
the law of monks to abstain from meats as from marriage. Some 
never eat any flesh ; others, only certain kinds on certain days. 
Frequent fasts are the rule and boast of their orders So lived 
the monks of the ancient church ; so live, with less strictness per- 
haps, but with greater ostentation, the monks and friars of the 
Church of Rome ; and these have been the principal propagators 
and defenders of the worship of the dead, both in former and in 
latter times. The worship of the dead is indeed so monstrously 



DEPARTURE PROM THE FAITH. 21 

absurd as well as impious, that there was hardly a probability of 
its ever prevailing in the world but by hypocrisy and lies. But 
that these particular sorts of hypocrisy — celibacy, under pretence of 
chastity ; and abstinence, under pretence of devotion — should be 
employed for this purpose, the Spirit of God alone could foresee and 
foretell. There is no necessary connection between the worship 
of the dead, and forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain 
from meats ; and yet it is certain that the great advocates for this 
worship have, by their pretended purity and mortification, procured 
the greater reverence to their persons, and the readier reception 
to their doctrines. But this idle, popish, monkish abstinence, is as 
unworthy of a Christian as it is unnatural to a man ; it is prevent- 
ing the purpose of nature, and commanding to abstain from meats, 
which God hath created to be received with thanks — giving by believ- 
ers, and them who know the truth." 

u Forbidding to marry" There are nearly a million 
of priests, and monks, and nuns in the Eoman Catholic 
Church, who are forbidden to marry, and who are 
bound by laws and vows, oaths they might be called, 
never to marry. And the millions of " the faithful" in 
her pale are forbidden to marry in the forty days of 
Lent, without a permit from the confessor or bishop. 
"Who else forbids to marry? What other church, if 
church this may be called? None ? Then the Church 
of Eome, and the Church of Eome only, fulfil this 
prophecy, and is the apostasy. " And commanding to 
abstain from meats. 1 '' Eome commands to abstain from 
meats every Friday, and the forty days of Lent — ninety- 
two days in each year ! 

In the thirteenth chapter of Eevelation, the Great 
Apostasy is announced and described by two symbolical 
beasts : 

" 1. And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up 



22 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his 
horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. 

"2. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his 
feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a 
lion ; and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great 
authority. 

" 3. And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death ; and 
his deadly wound was healed ; and all the world wondered after the 
beast. 

" 4. And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the 
beast ; and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the 
beast : who is able to make war with him ? 

" 5. And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things 
and blasphemies ; and power was given unto him to continue forty 
and two months. 

" 6. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to 
blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in 
heaven. 

" 7. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and 
to overcome them : and power was given him over all kindreds, and 
tongues, and nations. 

" 8. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose 
names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the 
foundation of the world. 

" 9. If any man have an ear let him hear. 

"10. He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity ; he 
that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is 
the patience and the faith of the saints. 

" 11. And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth ; and 
he had two horns like a lamb, and he spoke as a dragon. 

" 12. And he exercised all the power of the first beast before him, 
and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the 
first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. 

" 13. And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire to come 
down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. 

" 14. And he deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means 
of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the 
beast ; saying to them that dwell on the .earth, that they should 



SYMBOLIC LANGUAGE. 23 

make an image to the "beast, which had the wound by the sword and 
did live. 

" 15. And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, 
that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as 
many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. 

"16. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free 
and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their fore- 
heads. 

" 17. And that no man might buy or sell save he that had the 
mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. 

" 18. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the 
number of the beast : for it is the number of a man ; and his number 
is six hundred three score and six." 

Before attempting to give an exposition of this 
chapter, or to define what these beasts represent, it is 
necessary to notice the character and use of symbolic 
language. 

Language is a vehicle of thought, a medium through 
which to communicate ideas. The word tiger means, 
or designates a certain animal. There may be, and 
frequently is, no resemblance between the sound, the 
name, and the thing signified. But men have agreed 
that the letters t-i-g-e-r shall convey to the mind the 
idea of that animal ; and so of other things. But the 
terms tiger, or lion, or lamb ; &c, may be applied figur 
atively to a man, when he is supposed to possess dis- 
positions,' or traits of character, like those animals. 
Thus we say such an one is a tiger, a lion, a lamb. 
The idea that he is like the animal the name of which 
has been mentioned, is conveyed to the mind. 

Symbolic language is the representation of one thing 
by another. A city set on a hill is a representation, oi 
symbol, of the Church. An angel flying in the midst 



24 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

of heaven having the everlasting Gospel to preach to 
them that dwell on the earth, is a representation of the 
holy ministers of the Gospel going into all the world to 
preach its good tidings to every creature. A lamb in 
the midst of the throne, as seen by John, symbolizes 
the Son of God as the great atoning sacrifice for sin- 
ners. The four beasts, seen by Daniel in prophetic 
vision, the lion, the bear, the leopard, and the fourth 
beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly, 
represented four kingdoms. 

In symbolic language there is always some close re- 
semblance ; must be some striking similitude to the 
object represented. A tyrannical monarchy, a blood- 
thirsty nation, are symbolized by a ferocious beast ; a 
pure church by a chaste, lovely female : a fallen, cor- 
rupt one, by a harlot. The law, then, of symbolic Ian- 
guage, is analogy. 

A large portion of the Apocalypse is written in this 
language. The seals, the trumpets, the vials, the sun, 
the moon, and the stars ; the woman clothed with the 
sun, the woman sitting on the beast, the heavens and 
the earth ; the new Jerusalem coming down from God 
out of heaven, the great red dragon, and the two 
beasts, &c, are all symbols. Several of them in the 
seventeenth chapter are explained by the angel, who 
was with John when these mighty panoramic scenes 
passed before him. The ten horns of the beast are ten 
kings ; the seven heads, seven mountains, or powers ; 
the woman, Babylon the Great, described in that chap- 
ter, that great city, or church, which reigneth over the 
kings of the earth ; the waters, people and multitudes, 
and nations, and tongues. 



BEAST WITH SEVEN HEADS. 25 

The language of symbols is uniform as well as the 
language of words. A symbol, used by a writer to 
convey an idea, must be used, if at all, to convey that 
idea, and no other, throughout : otherwise, everything 
would be inextricable confusion. This is especially, 
emphatically so in the Apocalypse. Everything is 
uniform, distinct, clear. In the mighty machinery of 
seals, and trumpets, and suns, and angels, and beasts, 
&c, everything has its own, its peculiar meaning, and 
that meaning till the scene is closed. If, therefore, we 
can divine the meaning of these types, we have the 
key that unlocks this mysterious book. The import 
of many of them we know. The angel's explanation 
has lifted the veil and put the key in our hands. 

What or whom, then, does the beast, with seven heads 
and ten horns, symbolize ? The Eoman, or as it is fre- 
quently called, the German empire, which rose up upon 
the ruins of the old Eoman empire. The fourth beast 
in the vision of Daniel typed, all know, that ancient, 
powerful empire. That beast and the one seen by John 
are similar, if not the same, representing the empire 
when Pagan and when Eoman Catholic. The beast 
seen by Daniel had ten horns ; so had the one seen 
by John. In each vision these horns were explained 
to be ten kings, who were to come into being, and 
reign in the then future. The one seen by John, the 
angel, in his explanation in the xvii. ch. 8 v. said, 
"Was, and is not, and yet is" He "was" when the 
old Eoman empire was Pagan and persecuting, "is 
not," when the empire, under Constantine the Great, 
became Christian. His ferocity, his persecuting, blood- 
thirsty spirit, was then annihilated by the benign, pure 
2 



26 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

religion of Jesus Christ. The beast was changed to a 
lamb — "is not" "And yet is." He re-appeared in the 
new empire, whose religion, intolerant and persecuting, 
was and is Roman Catholic. The beast was, and is not, 
and yet is: Pagan Eome, Christian Rome, Papal Rome, 
as to religion. And let it be remembered, that it was, 
and is, a beast, or not, according to its disposition, its 
religion. The visions, then, in part, run into each 
other. Daniel's swept down to the time of the re-ap- 
pearance of the empire as Roman Catholic in religion, 
with its ten horns ; and John's went back and embraced 
it as Pagan. 

That this beast symbolizes the Holy Roman Empire, 
as it was called, sometimes the Italian, and now the 
German, which was built up by Charlemagne upon 
the ruins of the old one which had been swept away 
by the barbarian hordes from the North, will more 
plainly appear if we closely examine his appearance, 
his character, and his acts. 

He " rose up out of the sea" This empire came into 
being when society, the multitudes, the nations, &c, 
were troubled and tossed as the sea. 

He had "seven heads." In this empire as its heads, 
or the mountains or powers on which it rested, was an 
electoral college, composed of seven of the most im- 
portant principalities of the empire, which was estab- 
lished by the " Golden Bull" in 1356. The seven 
electors were the Archbishops of Metz, Cologne, and 
Triers, the King of Bohemia, the Count Palatine, 
the Duke of- Savoy, and the Margrave of Branden- 
burg, who elected the emperor and were the foundation 
and strength of the empire. These were the seven heads. 



BEAST WITH SEVEN HEADS. 27 

" Upon his heads the name of blasphemy" "A blasphe- 
my," says Dr. Clarke, "is the prostitution of a sacred 
name to an unholy use." "IJcnow the blasphemy of them 
who say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue 
of Satan" " The name of blasphemy," he adds, " is 
very properly said to be upon the seven heads of the 
beast, or the seven electorates of the German Empire, 
because the electors are styled : Sacri Imperii Prin- 
cipes Electores ; Princes, Electors of the Holy Empire : 
Sacri Eomani Imperii Electores ; Electors of the Holy 
Eoman Empire." 

"And of his heads as it were, was wounded to death ; 
and his deadly wound was healed." This wounding 
occurred in 1623, and the deadly wound was healed in 
1648. 

The Palatine Elector, Frederick V., who, for accept- 
ing the crown of Bohemia, the Bohemians preferring 
him to Ferdinand II., was put under the ban of the 
empire, his prerogatives and honors wrested from him, 
and his territories given to the Duke of Bavaria. At 
the treaty of Westphalia in 1648, the Lower Palatine 
was restored to Charles Louis, son of the deposed 
elector, with the prerogatives and honors of his father. 
The Upper Palatinate, still held by the Duke, was to 
revert to him if the former should have no male issue. 
This head was wounded by the sword to death, but 
was healed. 

" The ten horns," the angel, in the seventeenth chap 
ter, explained to be, " ten kings" 

These were the ten barbarian kingdoms which sprung 
up from the vast ruins of the old empire, and were in 
the new. Dr. Clarke thus gives their names : " 1. The 



28 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

kingdom of the Huns ; 2. The kingdom of the Astro- 
goths ; 3. The kingdom of the Visigoths ; 4. The 
kingdom of the Franks ; 5. The kingdom of the Van- 
dals ; 6. The kingdom of the Sneres and Alans ; 7. 
The kingdom of the Burgundians ; 8. The kingdom 
of the Heruli, Eugii, Scyrri, and other tribes, which 
composed the Italian kingdom of Odoacor; 9. The 
kingdom of the Saxons ; and, 10. The kingdom of 
the Lombards." 

He " was like unto a leopard." The empire was com- 
posed of different nations and tongues, almost as diver- 
sified as the spots of a leopard. 

11 And his feet were as the feet of a bear." This may have 
reference to the north-eastern extremities of the em- 
pire, known to be exceedingly wild and ferocious. His 
wildness and ferocity are meant. 

11 And his mouth as the mouth of a lion." "This 
figure," says one, " is to be understood as expressing 
the character of the head and government of the em- 
pire. The mouth utters its commands; and when 
Charlemagne spoke, it was as when the lion roareth in 
the forest, the beasts everywhere tremble." 

u And the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, 
and great authority" Who was the dragon ? In the 
twelfth chapter we have this description : 

u And there appeared another wonder in heaven ; and 
behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten 
horns, and seven crowns upon his heads." 

Some have supposed that this dragon symbolizes 
Satan ; but whenever John speaks of Satan it is in such 
language that we cannot misapprehend him. He speaks 
of him without any symbol, as Satan, the old serpent, 



BEAST WITH SEVEN HEADS. 29 

&c. Besides, Satan, I presume, has not seven heads and 
ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. 

Some have supposed that this dragon represents 
popery. This is as unreasonable and untenable as the 
view just noticed. Popery has not seven heads and 
crowns upon them, and ten horns. Besides, popery is 
symbolized in juxtaposition by the two-horned beast. 

This dragon was the old Roman empire. Its seven 
heads with crowns were the seven forms of govern- 
ments through which that empire passed. The beast, 
or new empire, succeeded to the seat and power and 
great authority of the old empire or dragon. 

The color of the dragon indicates his sanguinary 
disposition. He was red — red with the blood of the 
saints — Pagan Eome was. And so the beast to whom 
he gave place, made war with the saints and overcame 
them. The German empire has made war with the 
saints for a thousand years. They have been over- 
come, and their blood, by this beast, as by the red 
dragon, has been poured out as water. 

The " beast," then, to notice no other marks, with 
" seven heads and ten horns," who succeeded to the 
seat and power of the great red dragon, is the Holy 
Roman Empire, now the German empire. 

What or whom does the "beast" with "two horns like 
a lamb" and who "spake as a dragon" symbolize? 
Popery, beyond all doubt. Every mark, every pecu- 
liarity, prefigures and finds its prototype in that mon- 
strous system of corruption and wickedness and collos- 
sal power. The name can be applied to, means no- 
thing else. The beast-picture is filled up in all its 
savage outlines and dark proportions only by popery. 



30 THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

This beast rose up " out of the earth." He came up, 
not like the one with seven heads and ten horns, amid 
revolutions and wars, and the commotions and throes 
of civil society, but in a settled state of the empire, and 
without having to fight his way into being, and power, 
and dominion. He rose up without opposition and 
commotions, and is of this world — of "the earth" — not 
of God. Just so popery rose up, and such it is. 

He had " two horns like a lamb" Horns symbolize 
kings^ or rather the dominion, and power, and authority 
of kings. Popery claims universal, spiritual, and tem- 
poral dominion. The world is his, and the fulness 
thereof, the Pope declares ; and he has exercised su- 
preme spiritual and temporal authority. "Kings are 
his playthings, nations his outposts."* These are the 
horns of the beast. 

These horns were " like a lamb's." This denotes that 
the beast was of ecclesiastical origin, or pretensions. 
His power would be claimed to be of divine right ; and 
though wielded with the might and ferocity of a beast, 
yet in appearance very innocent. How clearly and 
unmistakable does this type popery. 

"He spake as a dragon" His horns belied his nature, 
his voice revealed him to be a dragon. Bead the man- 
dates of the Church of Eome ; listen to the bulls of 
Gregory VII., Innocent III., Urban VIII., Paul IV, 
Pius V., &c, and even Pius IX., and hear the voice of 
the beast as the voice of a dragon. 

"And he exercised all the power of the first beast before 
him." Before him, imports in his presence. Popery 

* See Chapter V. of this work, — Spiritual and Temporal Su- 
premacy. 



TWO-HORNED BEAST. 31 

has exercised all the power of the old Soman, or of 
the German empire. Nay, all the powers of Christen- 
dom were at one time at the feet of the Pope. 

"And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire to 
come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. 
And he deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means 
of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the 
beast." What a graphic description of popery ! What 
Church, or people, under heaven, who has any other 
mark of the beast, pretends to work miracles, and to 
make fire to come down from heaven, but the Church 
of Eome? We have already seen that she claims and 
pretends to exercise such power. 

"Saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should 
make an image to the beast, which had the wound by the 
sword, and did live." The dwellers on the earth were 
those among whom he rose up, and over whom he 
exercised dominion — the fallen Church of Eome. 

The " image" — what does it mean? It was to be 
an image of, or something exactly like, the first beast. 
Thatieastw&s a civil despotism, exercised by the nobil- 
ity and military, the seven heads and ten horns, with 
the emperor at their head — a political hierarchy, if an 
ecclesiastical term may be applied to temporals. The 
image, therefore, would be & spiritual despotic hierarchy. 
Such was made and now exists in the Church of Eome, 
at the instigation and command of the Pope. The 
hierarchy, consisting of cardinals, patriarchs, metropoli- 
tans, archbishops and bishops, with the Pope at their 
head, is an image, a facsimile, of the beast, with its 
seven electoral heads and ten horns, or kings. 



32 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

"And he had power to give life unto the image" &c. 
Into this hierarchy the Pope has breathed life, and it 
is a living image. It does indeed speak, and causes as 
many as will not worship it to be killed. 

"And he causeth all" &c, " to receive a mark in their 
right hand, or in their foreheads" The mark is simply 
the impress of the false doctrines taught. The followers 
and worshippers of the beast would, by a law of our 
nature, reflect his image ; and show in their foreheads, 
or intellects, and in their hands, or acts, that they are 
imbued with his spirit ; stamped, sealed with his seal : 
does not popery thus " mark the faithful" in their fore- 
heads and in their hands ? This view is confirmed by 
the following verse : "And that no man might buy or sell, 
save he that had the mark" 

Councils, and Popes, and priests, have decreed and 
taught, that Eoman Catholics must not buy of, or sell 
to heretics; they u must not harbor or cherish them in 
their houses, or have any traffic with them." So decreed 
the Council of Tours. None but the faithful, in thor- 
oughly Eoman Catholic countries, are to enjoy such 
immunities. The mark of the beast, the reception of, 
and belief in popery, must be in the forehead or in the 
hand, or the good papist is commanded not to have 
anything to do with them in "buying or selling; that 
being thus deprived of the comforts of humanity, they may 
be compelled to repent of the error of their ways" Thus 
decreed the Council of Lateran, with Pope Alexander 
III. at its head. 

"The pagan dragon, Dioclesian," says Mr. Mede, 
11 made just such another edict in his time, viz., ( That 



TWO-HORNED BEAST. 33 

no man must sell or administer anything to the Chris- 
Hans, unless they had first burnt incense to the gods. 1 "* 

And in countries where the Church of Koine is 
dominant, whenever her doctrines and claims are re- 
jected, and she excommunicates, and thus takes the 
" mark" off the offender, all forsake him, even his rela- 
tives, as abandoned of God, and none will have any 
dealings with him. He is more offensive and dreaded 
than a leper, and is left to die. Dr. Murray, in his 
letters to Archbishop Hughes, gives the case of a 
miller in Ireland, who, for reading the Bible, was 
anathematized with bell, book, and candle, and all his 
Eoman Catholic friends and neighbors forsook him, 
and but for a few Protestants he would have perished. 
A thousand of such cases might be given. 

But this buying and selling doubtless symbolizes 
spiritual traffic. And who buys and sells the grace of 
God but the Church of Eome ? And who has any 
right, according to her teaching, except those who 
have the mark of the beast, to deal in this merchandise ? 

Borne has decreed, and firmly holds, that there are 
no means of salvation but in her pale — and these are 
mostly auricular confession, priestly . absolution, in- 
dulgences, masses, extreme unction and purgatory ; 
and they are sold and bought. 

" Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding 
count the number of the beast ; for it is the number of a 
man ; and his number is six hundred threescore and six." 
This is a most important revelation. That we may 
know who the beast is, or what he symbolizes, his 
number is given, and the number of his name. They 

* Quoted by Ousley. 

2* 



34 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

are one. Is there, then, any power which meets the 
description already given — any Church, for we must 
look for something under the name of the Church, 
whose number and the number of whose name is 666 ? 

Until the tenth century, letters were used as nume- 
rals. I stood for 1, L for 50, C for 100, &c. The 
number of a Church, or of a name, therefore, is the 
sum of the numerical letters which compose that name. 
Thus, the number of Jerusalem is 1637 : J — e=250, 
r== 80, u— s=7, a— 1=50, e=250,- m=1000=1637. 
Now, the Greek term (and John wrote in Greek) used 
by the ancients, and now used by the Greeks, to desig- 
nate the Roman Catholic Church, Xarstvog, Lateinos ) 
contains this number. Thus, A=30, a=l, r=300, 
£= 5, *=10, ^=50, o=70, ^=200=666. And the 
Church of Rome is emphatically a, or the Latin Church. 
Latin is the language in which her laws and theology 
are written ; her prayers and her ritual are in Latin ; 
and Latin, though a dead language, is her language 
among all people everywhere. She calls herself the 
Latin Church ; though now generally the Roman, or 
Holy Roman Catholic. She is, then, in the sense the 
term indicates, essentially Latin. She is the beast. 

Ireneus, in commenting on this passage says, " The 
name Lateinos contains the number 666, and this is 
most like truth, because the last kingdom (the Roman) 
hath this name, for they are Latins who now reign."* 
He applied it to the Latin kingdom, but the Church had 
not then apostatized. Then it prophetically typed the 
Latin Church ; noio it shows her to be the prototype. 

Here then is wisdom, or demonstration, as this Greek 

* Quoted by Ousley. 



CORRUPT WOMAN. 35 

imports. Let him that hath, understanding count the 
number of the beast : for it is the number of a man ;* 
and his number is six hundred threescore and six. 

It may be objected, that if popery, as has been 
argued, be the two-horned beast, then the Eoman 
Church is not. But popery and that Church are essen- 
tially and inseparably one ; they stand or fall together. 
And the prophet has symbolized both, as of necessity, 
the one and the same great apostasy. 

The prophet in the seventeenth chapter describes 
the apostate Church under the symbol of a corrupt 
woman. 

" 1. And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven 
vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, come hither ; I will show 
unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many 
waters ; 

" 2. With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornica- 
tion, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with 
the wine of her fornication. 

"3. So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness : and 
I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet-colored beast, full of names of 
blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. 

" 4. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, 
and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a 
golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her 
fornication. 

" 5. And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Baby- 
lon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of 
the Earth. 

" 6. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, 
and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." 

This woman represents a fallen, corrupt Church. ; a 

* Latienos was the founder of the Latin Kingdom, whence the 
name Latin Kingdom— Latin Church. 



36 THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

Church deeply fallen and foully corrupt. The angel, 
in verse 18, explains her to be that great city, which 
reigneth over the kings of the earth, and a city sym- 
bolizes a Church. This view is entertained, 1 believe, 
almost without a dissenting voice, by the learned of 
all parties, Eoman Catholic and Protestant. Babylon 
the Great, the city, the woman, all say, symbolically 
represents the fallen Church, the apostasy. What 
Church does this woman symbolize ? The delineation 
of her character and description of her person, so 
graphically drawn by John, leaves no doubt that it is 
the Church of Eome, 

She " sitteth upon many waters" Waters "are 
peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues." 
(V. 15.) She also "sitteth upon a scarlet-colored beast, 
full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and 
ten horns" This beast, as we have seen, is the Holy 
Eoman, or German empire. The multitudes, &c, 
are subjects of the empire, and also members of the 
Church. Sitting upon the beast represents that she 
is the established religion, and that as a rider she guides 
and controls him. Could anything more clearly have 
pointed out the Church of Eome ? This prophecy has 
become history. 

" With whom the kings of the earth have committed 
fornication." This symbolizes spiritual unchastity — 
the practice of deep, vile corruptions in the name of 
religion. The cause of this fornication is given in the 
remaining part of the verse : " The inhabitants of the 
earth have been made drunk with the wine of her forni- 
cation." . "The symbol," says Wickes, "is taken from 
t-he cup of drugged wine with which lewd women 



CORRUPT WOMAN. 37 

were accustomed to inflame their lovers." The wine 
of her fornication, or corrupt doctrines, produces a 
moral stupor like intoxication, and hence kings and 
the multitudes are corrupted, and greedily practice 
with her, like the fallen Jewish Church of old, spiritual 
lewdness. And " nothing but the stupor of moral in- 
toxication could have induced the people to buy as 
greedily as they did, the Pope's indulgences ; and to 
yield themselves the easy dupes of the pious frauds 
and impositions practiced upon them by their spiritual 
teachers."* 

u And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet- 
color, and decked with gold and precious stones and 
pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abomina- 
tions and filthiness of her fornication" The golden cup 
symbolizes the means of graces, of which she professes 
to be the only depository and almoner ; but instead of 
its being filled with the " water of life" to satiate the 
thirst of the dying, and save them, it is full of the 
deadly poison of error. 

The scarlet-color, gold, precious stones, &c, repre- 
sent the gorgeous ceremonies, imposing processions, 
costly displays, and splendid rites of the apostate 
Church. And how clearly they point out the Church 
of Eome ; how fully, to the very letter, are they ful- 
filled in her habiliments and splendidly imposing cere- 
monies! Indeed, this passage might be construed 
literally, for Eome clothes herself in scarlet color, and 
is decked with gold and precious stones, &c. Indeed, 
if a rhetorician had been employed to write a descrip- 
tion of her gorgeous ceremonies and the color and 
* Apocalypse Unveiled. 



38 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

splendor of the dresses of her rulers, the Pope, and 
Cardinals, and Bishops,* he could not have more fully 
and clearly described them than John has. 

u And upon her forehead was a name written, MYS- 
TERY, Babylon the Great, &c." 

Babylon is another symbol of the apostate Church. 
Or, this is mystically the name of the woman who 
symbolizes the apostasy. Eoman Catholic writers 
affirm that Babylon represents the city of Eome when 
Pagan. But the woman who bore this name was not a 
literal city, or the symbol of one ; for she was upon the 
beast ; and if the beast was either the old Pagan Eoman 
Empire, or the Holy Eoman Empire, and Eomanists 
assert the former, then the city of Rome was a part of 
him. This would make nonsense of the passage. 
The beast was upon the beast ! Besides, the woman was 
upon the beast with ten horns and crowns upon them, 
not the beast of Daniel or old empire. The ten horns 
or kings made their appearance, came into existence 
after the destruction of the old empire. Babylon, 
therefore, does not, in any sense, symbolize the city of 
Eome. It symbolizes a corrupt Church, and that 
Church is Eome. 

The only meaning I can attach to the word "mystery" 
confirms this view. "In the Greek," says Wickes, 
" the word l mystery' is not reckoned as one of the 
names, as in our translation, but is separated by a pause, 
and stands in apposition with the words preceding. 
The meaning is as follows : And upon her forehead 

* Scarlet is a favorite color at Rome. Scaxlet caps, cloaks and 
slippers are worn, especially by the Cardinals. They ride in scarlet- 
colored carriages. Gold and precious stones are profusely worn. 



THE CORRUPT WOMAN. 39 

was a name written, which, is a mystery." And when 
we trace the history of the Church of Eome and ex- 
amine her doctrines, and practice, and assumptions — 
the corruptions that fester in her bosom, while she pro- 
claims that she cannot err — her bitter persecuting 
spirit, in utter antagonism to the gentle spirit of Jesus 
and the pure teachings and practice of the apostles, 
we understand the meaning of the term li mystery T 
The Church of Eome is, indeed, a mystery. But was 
the city of Eome as the seat of the old Eoman empire 
a mystery ? 

" And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the 
saints) and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." What 
a startling, sickening figure! Drunken, intoxicated, 
frenzied, not with wine, but with blood, with the blood 
of martyrs ! with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus I ' 
And who, that this woman can possibly symbolize, has 
drunk to intoxication the blood of the saints, but the 
Church of Eome ? She has drunk the blood of millions. 
Her prisons have echoed with the agonizing wail of the 
" martyrs of Jesus," and her engines of torture have 
groaned with their breaking bones, and her places of 
execution have witnessed their consuming flesh and 
blood smoking in the flame. This harlot, drunken with 
blood, is the Church of Eome ; the Church of Eome is 
the Great Apostasy. 

Every prediction, then, of the working of the mys- 
tery of iniquity in the Church — the falling away, the 
revelation of the Man of Sin, the departure from the 
faith, the uprising of the ferocious beast, lamb-like in 
appearance, but a dragon, and the corrupt woman in- 
toxicated with blood — all, all, concurrently point out, 



40 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

designate, symbolize the Church of Eome ; and every 
mark, every feature, every shape, and form, and trait 
of character, her position and name, and faith and 
practice — all meet in, and are fulfilled, by her. 
And no other Church or association under heaven 
meets and answers these descriptions, fulfils these 
predictions. She is the apostasy — is Antichrist. 
Nor is the force of this conclusion broken by the 
cry, that the Church of Eome is the oldest, the first 
Church. The history of the Jewish Church clearly 
demonstrates that a priesthood may become corrupt 
and be rejected of the God who instituted it; that a 
Church may fall away and become His enemy, and 
incur His displeasure and curse. The history of the 
Seven Churches of Asia, especially the Church of 
Laodicia, proves this. And the prophecies we have 
just been considering, show beyond all question that 
there would come a falling away in the Church, that 
the Man of Sin would rise up in her midst and sit in 
the temple of God, and teach doctrines of devils. The 
objection, then, the argument, if I may so call it, that 
the Church of Eome has come down from the apostles, 
has not only no force in it, but is a sophism. Is the 
Church of Eome what the Apostolic Church was? 
Has she come down to us as Jesus Christ laid her deep 
foundations and reared her bulwarks and towers? 
Are her doctrines and her practice the same ? These 
are the questions which have a direct logical bearing 
upon the great issues before us, and which, if answered 
in the negative — and so only in truth they can be 
answered — show the sophistry of this objection, and 
demonstrate our position. In a word, is the Church of 



ROME NOT APOSTOLIC. 41 

Borne to day, what the Church was in the apostles' 
day? No, verily; as we have seen, and will more 
fully see, when we come to examine thoroughly her 
doctrines, and practice, and assumptions. Now, God 
has decided, if anything is decided in his Word, that 
the doctrine, once a Church always a Church, once a 
priest always a priest, though unfaithful and corrupt, 
is false. The Church that becomes corrupt, the priest 
that is ungodly, cease to be the spouse and minister of 
Jesus Christ. To maintain the contrary is to maintain 
a monstrous absurdity, and a most wicked, damning 
dogma. If a corrupt Church is the Church of Jesus 
Christ still, can do the work of her Lord, to wit, save 
souls, then not only are wicked men saved, — they com- 
pose the Church, and the Church which is his spouse, 
must be saved, — but heaven has become hell, and all 
distinctions between virtue and vice, sin and holiness, 
are annihilated. Although this is a favorite subterfuge 
with Borne, and sometimes great stress is laid upon it, 
it would be almost an insult to the good sense and in- 
telligence of the reader to notice it farther. Sin is 
hateful to God in any being, and turns away from that 
being His favor and brings upon him His wrath. An 
apostate Church, therefore, is rejected of God, and there 
is no salvation in her pale. The Man of Sin is not 
the channel of grace to the world, his acts are not 
divinely, spiritually valid. Christ has no part with 
Antichrist. 



CHAPTER II. 

SOUKCE AND BULE OF FAITH. 

Lsr the preceding chapter I have shown that the 
Supreme Head of the Church predicted a great falling 
away ; and, in general terms, that the Church of Rome, 
in name, position, doctrine, and practice, fulfils the 
prediction. Before proceeding to examine more fully 
her doctrines, and practice, and assumptions, that the 
picture, in outline and detail, may be complete, it is 
absolutely necessary to ascertain, to know beyond all 
doubt, the source and rule of faith to which our ultimate 
appeal must be made, and by which the points in con- 
troversy are to be determined. What, the,n, is the 
source and rule of faith ? The Bible, say we. The Bible 
and tradition, say Roman Catholics. 

u Tradition ," the Council of Trent decreed, "is of 
equcd authority with the Scriptures" Nor was this an 
entirely new dogma. For over five hundred years 
tradition had been appealed to as of great authority in 
matters of faith. Indeed, even Popes, and bishops, and 
divines, had affirmed, that it is of equal authority with 
Holy Writ; and some, that it is above scripture. 
Under Leo X., and by his sanction, Prierio said, " He 
is a heretic whosoever does not rest on the doctrine of 
the Roman Church, and of the Roman Pontiff as the 
infallible rule of faith, from which Holy Scripture itself 

(42) 



RULE OF FAITH. 43 

derives its force and its authority" This point gained, 
this dogma forever settled, (and an infallible council has 
since decreed it,) Eome can prove almost anything. 
Infallibility, auricular confession, priestly absolution, 
transubstantiation, purgatory, the supreme spiritual 
and temporal power of the Pope, all, all may be sus- 
tained. Tradition, running back a century or two, or 
four or five, or six hundred years, establishes all — 
proves them to be of divine origin I And yet they are 
not only not of divine origin, but contrary to the com- 
mandments and teaching of the Head of the Church 
and His inspired Apostles. This in order I shall show. 
Hence, when tradition and Holy Scripture disagree — 
and disagree they do at almost every turn — the weight 
of authority is given, and obedience rendered to the 
former by the Church of Eome, and Scripture is thrown 
aside. Soon after the close of the Council of Trent, 
Pius IY. prepared the oath, to be taken by all ecclesias- 
tics. A part of it runs thus : 

" I firmly embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions, and 
all the constitutions of the mother church ; moreover, I admit Holy 
Scripture according to the sense which the said church holds, and 
has held," (that of course is according to tradition,) "to which 
church it appertains to judge." 

u I firmly embrace tradition!" " Moreover, I admit 
holy Scripture /" Is not this putting tradition, in every 
sense, above Scripture ? Cardinal Bellarmine, an 
oracle with Rome, says, " We shall endeavor to demon- 
strate that the /Scriptures, without the traditions, are nei- 
ther sufficient, nor simply necessary" Then, tradition 
is first, above, and all in all. Take that away, and man, 
benighted, erring man, has no "lamp unto his feet, nor 



44 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

light unto his path." Baronius, another champion of 
Eome, says, " Tradition is the foundation of the Scrip- 
tures, and surpasses them in this, to wit, that the Scrip- 
tures cannot subsist unless fortified by tradition, whereas 
tradition has sufficient force without Scripture.' 1 '' Coster 
affirms, " The excellence of the non- written word far 
surpasses that of the Scriptures. Tradition comprises 
in itself all truth* We ought not to appeal from it to 
any other judge." " Scripture," adds Lindanus, u is a 
nose of wax, a dead letter that kills, a very hush without 
a kernel, a leaden rule, a school for heretics, a forest that 
serves as a refuge for robbers "f These quotations might 
be extended. But surely here is enough to satisfy 
every candid, unprejudiced mind, that while Eome 
declares that the Bible and Tradition are the source, and 
the rule of faith, tradition is first and last. Scripture 
is nothing without tradition, " cannot subsist without 
it, whereas tradition has sufficient force without Scrip- 
ture." "The non-written word comprises in itself all 
truth.'''' What, then, corrupt popes have decreed, what 
fallible doctors have said, what councils-general have 
decreed — and they have decreed Arianism at one Coun- 
cil and the contrary at another — these things compose 
the Bible of Eoman Catholics. Can the candid reader 
resist the conclusion, that Eome has " departed, from 
the faith, and gives heed to seducing spirits and doc- 
trines of devils " ? 

To return : The Scripture, say we, say all Protest- 
ants, is the rule of faith, the only source and rule of 
faith. It can " subsist" alone, and " comprises in itself 

* The converse is certainly nearer the truth. 
\ Quoted by Bungener. 



RULE OF FAITH. 45 

all truth." What say the early Fathers ? Those 
holy men who lived immediately after the Apostles, 
before the "mystery of iniquity," with its corrupt 
leaven, had spread through the Church. Hear Ireneus, 
he who was " a disciple of a disciple of John " : " The 
Gospel was first preached by the Apostles ; then by the 
will of God, they wrote it, in order that it might become 
the foundation and pillar of our faith." "We must," 
he adds, " necessarily appeal to the testimony of the 
Scriptures, without which our discourses are entitled to no 
credit" " Our discourses are entitled to no credit with- 
out the Scriptures " ! Infallible Eome has decreed the 
contrary. Those very discourses, she affirms, the tra- 
dition of that day, are of equal authority with the 
Gospel; nay, they have "sufficient force to subsist 
without Scripture," for they "comprise in themselves 
all truth." 

Tertullian, writing against a similar error in his day, 
says: "Let the disciples of Hermogenes show that what 
they teach is written; and if it be not written, let them 
tremble at the anathema pronounced on whosoever 
takes from or adds to Scripture." 

"It is necessary that every one instruct himself, by 
means of the divine Scriptures, in the necessary veri- 
ties, both that he may make progress in piety, and not 
accustom himself to human traditions. What is written, 
do thou believe; what is not written, seek thou not after." 
So wrote, so taught St. Basil. 

St. Ambrose taught: "If you take away or add 
aught to Scripture, this seems to be a prevarication. 
When the Scriptures do not speak, who shall speak ?" 

"Let us not stop," wrote St. Augustine, "at what I 



46 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

have said, or you have said, but at what the Lord hath 
said. We have the Lord's books, there let us look for 
the Church." Augustine, hadst thou lived in this our 
day, thou hadst been called a Protestant heretic, and been 
given over to the tender mercies of the devil. "Look 
to the Lord's books for the Church"? "Nay, nay!" 
the aroused spirit of Eome replies, "Look to tradition" 
The eloquent Chrysostom says : " When impious 
heresy shall occupy the churches, know that then there will 
be no proof of true faith but by Holy Scripture. Have 
RECOURSE, THEREFORE, ONLY TO IT, FOR THOSE WHO 
GO ELSEWHERE SHALL PERISH." Was he right? 

Rome acknowledges him as a true son of the Church, 
and receives his writings and sayings as a part of tra- 
dition. Then, Rome being judge, tradition being 
infallible authority, " impious heresy occupies" her 
" churches," and they " shall perish." But why make 
these reflections? Every reader must see this at a 
glance. Were she not blind, and her "conscience 
seared with a hot iron," Rome, too, could see it. But 
these passages, and all similar ones, have been stricken 
out of the works of the Fathers published by Rome. 
Nothing shall contravene her in her purpose of doing 
her pleasure. 

The ruling spirit of the Council of Nice, Athanasius, 
says — and the Council were one with him : " The 
Scriptures suffice of themselves alone, for making known 
the truth. "We are resolved to listen to nothing, to 
say nothing, beyond what has been loritten. It is a 
mockery to raise questions or discussions on what has 
not been written." 

Let us hear St. Augustine once more: "Under 



RULE OF FAITH. 47 

pretext of the Lord's having said, ! I have yet more 
things to say to you, 7 heretics try to give a plausible 
color to their inventions. But if the Lord has not said, 
who among us will venture to say : It is this, it is 
that ! And if he is rash enough to say it, how will he 
prove it? And who will be presumptuous enough to 
affirm, without any divine testimony, that what he 
says, even although it were true, is precisely what the 
Lord meant to say." " Eash, presumptuous," is it ? but 
Rome " ventures" to "invent," "to say," to decree it. 
She is infallible, and in virtue of that "invents, says," 
decrees that tradition is of equal authority with Scrip- 
ture ; and then proves her infallibility by tradition ! 
Is not the " vicious circle" the ground and pillar of 
Eome ? But more of this hereafter. 

For the first eight centuries, the faith of the Church, 
in every sense, rested entirely on Scripture. And all 
the decrees of all the Councils, Nice, Ephesus, Chalce- 
don, &c, were drawn from, and based upon, this infal- 
lible authority. If any allusion was made to tradition, 
it was not as of equal authority with the Scriptures, 
but as fallible history that had come down with the 
Gospel. The history of the Church — her teachings, 
her conflicts, her sufferings, her triumphs — was unin- 
spired, and therefore had no authority as a rule of faith. 
No article of faith was drawn from, or predicated of it. 
In matters so essential, it was of no more authority 
with the Fathers, the evangelical theologians of that 
period, than the History of the Diet of Worms is with 
us. Now, if the Church for eight hundred years de- 
clared tradition to be of no authority as a rule of faith, 
but pernicious and destructive when appealed to as 



48 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

such, as some heretics had done ; and if she declared 
repeatedly and always that the " Scriptures comprise 
in themselves all truth;" that they, and they alone, 
are a sufficient, the only rule of faith — is not the ques- 
tion settled? And what right has Eome now, in the 
face of all this, to decree the contrary ? By virtue of 
her infallibility? But the Church, she affirms, is a 
unit, and the same in all ages. If infallible now, she 
was infallible then. But then she rejected tradition 
and kept exclusively to Holy Scripture ! And then, 
she claimed not the attribute of infallibility, but reiter- 
ated a thousand and one times that the "Word of God 
only was infallible. How will the Eomanist escape 
these dilemmas ? how bridge the mighty gulf between 
him and the Church in her pure, early days ? Truly, 
the dogma of infallibility is a chimera, and tradition a 
foundation of sand! 

Turn we to the Scriptures themselves. What is 
their voice on this momentous question ? What has 
Jesus taught ? What the apostles ? Hear St, Paul : 

"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable 
for doctrine, for reproof for correction, for instruction in righteous- 
ness ; that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto 
all good works."* 

" Now to Him that is of power to establish you according to my 
Gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation 
of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but 
now is made manifest, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, accord- 
ing to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all 
nations for the obedience of faith ."f 

" For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for 

* 2 Tim. iii. 16, 17. f Rom. xvi. 25, 26. 



RULE OF FAITH. 49 

our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures 
might have hope." 

" If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved 
away from the hope of the Gospel, which ye have heard, which was 
preached to every creature."* 

Now, inspiration affirms, in these passages, and who 
will deny, that God has given " Scripture for doctrine" 
&c, that the man of God maybe perfect, thoroughly fur- 
nished unto all good works ; that He has u made known" 
his will by " the preaching of Jesus Christ" and " the 
Scriptures of the prophets " " to all nations for the obe- 
dience of faith" that " we might have hope ;" and that 
being " grounded and settled in the faith," we might 
"not be moved away (by tradition?) from this hope of 
the Gospel." Is not Scripture, then, according to the 
voice of God, the only source and rule of faith ? 

On the other hand, listen to what the Scriptures say 
concerning tradition : 

" Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain de- 
ceit, after the tradition of men." A caution that it would have 
been well for the souls of men, for Kome to have observed.* 

" I marvel that ye are so soon removed from Him that called you 
into the grace of Christ unto another Gospel: Which is not another ;" 
(there cannot be another ; it is vain " philosophy or tradition ;") 
" but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the Gospel 
of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any 
other Gospel unto you than that which we have pkeached unto you, 
let him be accursed." 

" Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders ?" 
asked the devout, tradition-loving Pharisees of Jesus, " for," they said, 
" they wash not their hands when they eat bread !" " But he answer- 
ed and said unto them, why do ye also transgress the commandment 
of God by your tradition ?" " Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias pro- 

* Col. i. 23. 

3 



50 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

phesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their 
mouth, and honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from 
me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the 
commandments of men. Thus have ye made the commandment of 
God of none effect by your tradition. " ° 

St. Mark gives this remarkable conversation almost 
in the precise words of St. Matthew :f 

" Then the Pharisees and Scribes asked him, Why walk not thy 
disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with 
unwashen hands ? He answered and said unto them, Well hath 
Esaias prophesied of you, hypocrites, as it is written, This people 
honoreth me their lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit in 
vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of 
men. For, laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradi- 
tion of men. And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the com- 
mandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition." "Making 
the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye 
have delivered." 

The Elders and Pharisees were members of, some of 
them priests and rulers in, the Jewish Church. God 
had promised to be with, guide, bless and protect that 
Church. Had they not a right, therefore, to " deliver" 
tradition, or to decree that it was of equal authority 
with Scripture? Jesus declared that they had no 
such right, or authority ; and further, that their tra- 
dition had made of none effect the commandments of God. 
Their tradition, therefore, was the height of presump- 
tion and wickedness. 

If, then, the Jewish Church, priests and elders, as is 
here clearly taught by the Saviour, had no right to 
" deliver tradition," or decree it to be a source and rule 
of faith, but in wickedly attempting to do so made the 

• Matt. xv. 2, &c. f Mark vii. 5, &c. 



RULE OF FAITH. 51 

Word of God of none effect; the Church of Eome, by 
parity of reasoning, has no such right : She has no 
promise or presence of God ; no grace and inspiration 
denied the former. In decreeing tradition, therefore, 
to be of equal, I may very safely say, superior author- 
ity to the Scripture, she has transcended her preroga- 
tives, and wickedly " departed from the faith." 

And finally, the great apostle of the Gentiles solemnly 
avers that tradition led him into grievous blasphemies, 
persecutions, and ignorant sins. Hear his earnest, 
startling words :* 

" As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any 
other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be ac- 
cursed." * * * "I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which 
was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of 
man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ, 
For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews re- 
ligion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the Church of God 
and wasted it ; and profited in the Jews religion above many my 
equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the 
traditions of my fathers." * * * "But I obtained mercy, who 
was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor and injurious, because I 
did it ignorantly in unbelief."^ 

What ! an ignorant unbeliever, and yet " being 
more exceeding zealous of the traditions of the fathers! 
"What ! persecuting zeal, according to tradition blasphe- 
mous, injurious and damning!' 7 

Now the conclusion is clear and inevitable, that the 
Bible is the only source and rule of faith. And any 
other view is not only illogical and absurd, but deroga- 
tory to the character of the divine lawgiver. For if 

* Galatians i. 9, &c. f 1 Tim - *• 13 - 



52 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

God has revealed himself to man, that revelation must 
contain all things pertaining to faith and morals neces- 
sary to salvation. This, thank God, is the view, the 
doctrine of Protestants. "The Holy Scriptures," say 
we, " contain all things necessary to salvation; so that 
whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved 
thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it 
should be believed as an article of faith, or be thought 
requisite or necessary to salvation." We have, there- 
fore, thrown our banner to the breeze with this inscrip- 
tion, "The Bible, the Bible, the religion of Protest- 
ants !" upon its ample folds. That banner, in heaven's 
own pure breezes, shall wave over every moral battle- 
field where " the sacramental hosts of God's elect" shall 



°*0.' 



" Till earth's remotest nation 
Has learned Messiah's name !" 

and the "philosophy, and vain deceit, and tradition 
of men," shall have been swept away ! 

What writings or books compose the Bible? or 
what is the canon of Scripture ? is a question of almost 
equal importance with the one just under review, and 
one about which Eoman Catholics and Protestants as 
widely differ. The latter receive thirty- nine books of 
the Old Testament : the Pentateuch, or five books of 
Moses, the Historical books, Joshua, Judges, Euth, the 
first and second books of Samuel, first and second 
books of Kings, first and second books of Chronicles, 
the book of Ezra, of Nehemiah, of Esther ; the Poet- 
ical books Job, the Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, 
Cantica, or Songs of Solomon, and Lamentations of 
Jeremiah ; the Prophetical books, four prophets the 



RULE OF FAITH. 53 

greater, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel, and 
twelve prophets the less, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, 
Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Hag- 
gai, Zechariah, and Malachi ; and all the books of the 
New Testament. Eoman Catholics receive all these 
books, and so far we are agreed ; but they receive also, 
as inspired and canonical, the Apocryphal books, 
the first and second books of Esdras, Tobit, Judith, 
Wisdom, of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, the Epis- 
tle of Jeremiah, the Song of the Three Children, the 
story of Susanna, the story of Bel and the Dragon, 
and the first and second books of Maccabees, and the 
additions to the book of Esther. The Council of Trent, 
at its fourth session, solemnly decreed these books to 
be of equal rank and authority with the inspired writ- 
ings of Moses, and the Prophets and Apostles, and 
took them into the sacred canon of Scripture. 

The history of this decree, by Bungener,* and his 
acute reflections, throw much light on this question, 
and in connection with a few thoughts I shall offer, 
demonstrate that Rome is as deeply in error touching 
this matter as on the question of tradition. He says : 

" The Council was called upon to state precisely where it (Scrip- 
ture) was to be found, and what the books are which compose it. 

" How happened it that such questions still remained to be de- 
cided ? To be infallible, and to remain for fifteen centuries without 
saying precisely what went to make up the Bible, was, on the 
Church's part, either a singular forgetfulness of her mission, or a 
singular avowal of her impotence. And one cannot say here, that 
if she had neglected to pronounce, it was because there was no 
doubt on the subject. The discussion showed that there was more 
than one. 

* See Bungeners History of the Council of Trent, p. 83. 



54 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

" Does not the Church in arrogating to herself this absolute right 
of teaching, and of being the only teacher, authorize us to demand 
of her a reckoning of what she has not done, as well as of what 
she has done ? An infallible authority charged with the regulation 
of the faith, and a fundamental question that has remained for ages 
doubtful, will always, people may say what they will, present a con- 
tradiction. What is certain is, that on the 7th of April, 1546, the 
day before that on which the Council's decision came to be known, 
there was not a single Eoman Catholic in the whole world that 
could tell, either of his own authority, for none had the right to do 
so, or on his Church's part, seeing she had never formally pro- 
nounced her opinion — the exact number of the canonical books. 
' Many,' says Pallivicini* ' lived in the most distressing ignorance 
with regard to this ; the same book being adored by some as the 
expression of the Holy Ghost, and execrated by others as the work 
of a sacrilegious imposter.' " " The divisions of Protestants on 
this subject," adds Bungener, " have never gone nearly so far as 
this. 

" The discussion was warm, and even, in some respects, sufficiently 
learned, but not on the part of the bishops." 

It is just to remark, however, as Bungener else- 
where states, that a few of them were men of "high 
theological capacity." 

" Here, then," he adds, " should be the place for noticing the 
intervention of that other class of members, the divines, who had 
been called to the Council for the purpose of elucidating the ques- 
tions under discussion, but without voting, that privilege being ex- 
clusively confined to bishops, mitred abbots, and the heads of relig- 
ious orders. Their number was at all times much about the same 
as that of the voting members. Were we not too tired of the sub- 
ject to return again to the question of infallibility,! viewed in the 
relation to forms, we might be tempted to ask if their presence 
accorded with the spirit of the system in virtue of which the body 

* The approved Roman Catholic historian of the Council of Trent, 
t See pp. 47, 48. See also Chap. III. of this work. 



RULE OF FAITH. 55 

of bishops is alone infallible ; with the spirit, we say, for, as respects 
the letter, the reply would be, that they did not vote. A great 
many questions were, in fact, handed over to them ; the majority 
of votes was in many instances determined by the confidence re- 
posed in their statements. The bishops were, doubtless, right in 
collecting all the elucidations possible ; but one can hardly under- 
stand how a court should remain incapable of error, and yet pro- 
nounce its sentences according to the opinions of certain adepts who 
are not infallible. 

" Nevertheless, in the question of the canonical books, the con- 
trary was about to take place, for in that case the decision came 
from the bishops. Let us see how far this was to the honor of the 
Council. 

" The divines were unanimous in recognizing the inferiority of 
the books which Protestants regarded then, and still regard, as 
apocryphal. Could they hesitate? Josephus, Eusebius, Origen, 
Athanasius, Epiphanius, Cyril, Gregory of Nazianzen, Hilary of 
Poictiers, Augustine, Jerome above all, he who of all the Fathers 
had labored most on the Bible, speak of it as a generally acknowl- 
edged fact ; and if, after all that these have said, there is still some 
room for discussion as to the views they entertained of such or such 
a particular book of those in question, it is not the less beyond 
doubt that they all believed in the non-authenticity of some, and 
the inferiority of all. 

" Such, then, was the state of matters ; but this unanimity on 
the part of the divines, did not extend to their being agreed as to 
the rank to be assigned to those books in the Bible. Some wanted 
a simple statement of their inferiority, without determining the 
degree ; others, that they should be divided into two classes, one of 
which should serve as an intermediate between those universally 
admitted as canonical, and the apocryphal, which had been gener- 
ally reputed as doubtful. A third party merely required that 
there should simply be a list drawn up, without explanation, of all 
the books ; and last of all, a fourth, consisting of but a feeble mi- 
nority among the divines, without denying that the apocryphals 
had held hitherto a more or less inferior rank, proposed to put an 
end to the matter by declaring them canonical. 

" Will it be believed ? The last of these opinions carried the day. 



56 THE GEEAT APOSTASY. 

This was to trample under foot the testimony of twenty Fathers ; 
it was to deny the superabundantly demonstrated fact, that the 
ancient Jews did not believe in the canonicity of those books ; it 
was to brave the general opinion of the Eoman Catholics, as well 
as the recriminations of the, Protestants ; it was even to overlook 
the scruples of the very divines of the Council. No matter ! Was 
the assembly not omnipotent ? And had the bishops been pleased 
to insert Plato's Phaedo, or Aristotle's Logic, in the Bible, what 
could a Roman Catholic say against it ? Ah ! when we see how 
much sweating and sophistry it has cost during the last three cen- 
turies, in order to sustain this untenable decree, one may be allowed 
to think that the champions of Rome have more than once cursed, 
in their heart, the day on which so imprudent a denial was given to 
one of the most unquestionable facts in the whole history of the 
Church. But what is sadder still than the infatuation of the men 
who imagine that they could change the past as they fettered the 
future, is the impudent fury with which some would dare, down to 
this very day, to repeat that the Protestants mutilate the Bible ; 
and why ? Because, forsooth, they allow themselves to print it 
without those books which Rome herself, down to the Council of 
Trent, had never declared canonical !" 

" The apocryphal books were not admitted into the canon of 
Scripture during the first four centuries of the Christian Church. 
They are not mentioned in the catalogue of inspired writings made 
by Melito, Bishop of Sardis, who flourished in the second century, 
nor in those of Origen, in the third century, of Athanasius, Hilary, 
Cyril of Jerusalem, Epiphanius, Gregory of Nazianzen, Amphilochius, 
Jerome, Rufinus, and others of the fourth century ; nor in the cata- 
logue of canonical books recognized by the Council of Laodicia, 
held in the same century, whose canons were received by the 
Catholic Church." * 

The apocryphal books were written by Jews of Alex- 
andria, some two or two hundred and fifty years 
before Christ ; who made no claim to inspiration. There 
is no evidence, external or internal, that they are of 

* Watson's Theo. Dictionary. 



RULE OF FAITH. 57 

God. They contain absurd fables, and contradict 
themselves, and the inspired writings. The prophetic 
spirit had departed from the Church with Malachi, and 
appeared no more till the " Lord suddenly came to his 
temple, the messenger of the covenant." The Great 
Teacher never recognized them as of divine authority, 
or of any authority, as a rule of faith ; he never quoted 
them, or even alluded to them. The law of Moses, 
the Psalms, the book of Job, and the Prophets, all 
received his divine sanction as the inspired will of God. 
The Apostles who spake and wrote as the Holy Ghost 
gave them utterance, quoted from the Law, the Psalms, 
the Prophets, but never from the Apocryphal books. 
Josephus gives us a very specific account of the canon 
of Scripture, as recognized by the Jew r s in his day, and 
the books of the Apocrypha are rejected. The voice 
of the Church for several hundred years, through her 
wisest, best ministers, and her Councils, was against the 
admission of those books into the sacred canon. And 
never were they received as of any authority in 
matters of faith, by any church or people, till the in- 
fallible Council of Trent, against the views and remon- 
strances of some of the ablest divines of that day, voted 
them to be equal to the Law and the Prophets. That 
vote stamped them with inspiration, and henceforth 
they are a part of the Scriptures, and, with tradition, a 
rule of faith ! But I may add, in language similar to 
that used by the great Italian Philosopher, when Eome, 
through the Inquisition, made him declare the truth of 
science to be a lie, it is not the will of God notwith- 
standing. 

But why, it may be asked, as millions of souls will 
3* 



58 THE GEEAT APOSTASY. 

ask, and as the Judge of all, I believe, will ask, why 
decree those books to be a part of Scripture ? It an- 
swers a purpose. Some cherished doctrines, exorcism* 
priestly absolution and purgatory, receive, it is siipposed, 
some sanction from them; maybe indirectly proved, 
at least, by much, torturing ! 

And why, it may be further asked, and the question 
is significant, why were some of the Apocryphal books 
rejected by the Council ? The prayer of Manasseh and 
the third and fourth books of Esdras were left out. 
Had they not equal claims to inspiration and canonici- 
ty ? Unquestionably they had ; which was just none 
at all. Those books, and the Targums, the Talmud, 
the Cabala, and Josephus, might have been very con- 
veniently taken in, and quite as righteously too ! And 
then the curse, denounced against all those who " shall 
add unto," or "shall take away from" the inspired 
Word, would no more certainly have fallen upon them, 
and upon their Church! 

The conclusion, then, is inevitable — indeed, I cannot 
see liow moral reasoning could be stronger — that the 
thirty -nine boohs of the Old Testament, and all of the 
Nevj, compose the canon of Scripture, and that, by con- 
sequence, the Apocryphal boohs, that have no claim to 
inspiration, but are in conflict with it ; that were not re- 
ceived as canonical by Jesus Christ or his Apostles, nor 
by Jews or Christians, until voted as such by the Council 
of Trent in 1546 — -form no part of it. 

The Scriptures, then, the Old and New Testaments, 
being a rule of faith, must have been designed by the 

* See Tobit. The heart and liver of a fish burnt on the ashes of 
the perfume, drove a devil into Egypt. 



RULE OF FAITH. 59 

gracious God who vouchsafed them, for every human 
being — to be put in every man's hands. This proposition 
is so clearly set forth by inspiration itself, so fully sus- 
tained by the history of the Church for the first eight 
centuries, and, withal, so accordant with common sense, 
that, at first blush, it would seem wholly unnecessary 
to spend a moment in discussing it. But views, 
dogmas, have been entertained, and even now prevail 
with regard to it, as wide apart as the poles, and lines 
of conduct have been pursued as widely divergent. 
Protestants believe that the Bible was given for all ; 
for universal distribution among all people and in all 
languages. Hence, they distribute it gladly among all 
— send it out without "note or comment" wherever 
Providence opens a door, in heathen lands, or in de- 
spotic Eoman Catholic countries. As the Word of God, 
the source and rule of faith, they believe it will "be a 
light unto the Gentiles," and will guide many a troubled 
spirit, that vain tradition and forms and ceremonies 
have utterly failed to comfort, unto Him who gives the 
"weary and heavy laden rest." 

Borne believes that it was given to the Church to be 
kept by her Priests, by them to be expounded to the 
people ; that no one should presume to receive it 
"without the annotations of the Church," and only 
then under the "license of a Priest," or with the "con- 
sent of a Bishop," and that even then, he must "form 
no opinion'''' of its teachings, or "make any interpreta- 
tions " "contrary to the sense which the Church has held 
and holds, even although he should have the intention of 
holding these interpretations secret" So decreed the 
Council of Trent; and so "the faithful" must act, or 



60 THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

be shut out from the possibility of salvation. This 
decree amounts to a prohibition of the circulation, re- 
ception and reading of the Bible. It has been so re- 
garded by nearly every Pope since. The license of 
the Priest and consent of the Bishop may not be ob- 
tained. This is the case at this moment in Mexico, 
Central and South America, and the Eoman Catholic 
countries of Europe. But, obtained, and the Bible in 
hand, " no opinion must be formed," no "interpreta- 
tion" conceived " contrary to the sense the Church 
holds, although the interpretation be secret" ! Who, 
then, will dare to read ? If to " form an opinion," if 
to conceive an "interpretation" even "in the depths 
of conscience" "contrary to the sense the Church 
holds," is a crime, then there is but one way to avoid 
the difficulty : never read at all ! 

Immediately after the close of the Council of Trent, 
Pius IV. published, and sent out to the shepherds of 
the flock, "a catalogue of forbidden books," accom- 
panied with the following apostolic opinion and injunc- 
tion : . 

" Experience having proved that the reading of the Holy Scrip- 
tures, granted without distinction to everybody, does more harm 
than good, because of the rashness of men, it will thenceforth depend 
on the judgment of the bishop, or of the inquisitor, to grant accord- 
ing as he may be advised by the parish priest or confessor, leave to 
read those books, translated into the vulgar tongue by Catholic 
authors, to those who they know can derive from them nothing 'preju- 
dicial to faith and piety. That permission ought to be given in 
writing. Whoever shall not be furnished with it, and who, never- 
theless, shall have the presumption to read or to possess the Scrip- 
tures, shall not have it in his power to obtain the absolution of his 
sins (!) if he shall not have previously handed them over to the 
bishop." 



JRULE OF FAITH. 61 

But a few years after, Clement VIII. went a few 
steps further, if possible. Hear him : 

" It is to be observed that this rule has not conferred on bishops 
and inquisitors any new powers of granting license to buy, read, or 
possess the Bible in the vulgar tongue, seeing that hitherto, by the 
order and usage of the holy (!) and universal Roman Inquisition, 
that power had been withdrawn from them — which ihivg ought to he 
rigorously observed" 

Then, the Word of God is bound — is denied the 
people, seeing " it does more harm than good" — " is prej- 
udicial to faith and piety" ! A bishop, if his judg- 
ment approve, " according as he maybe advised by 
the parish priest," had the power by a written license to 
"grant to those who" will read it as an automaton, 
and " derive nothing from it prejudicial to faith and 
piety," " leave to buy, read, or possess the Bible" [ 
but that "power" is "withdrawn by the holy Eoman 
Inquisition" ! And what does "the holy Inquisition" 
say ? Listen to Perez del Prado, an Inquisitor-Gene- 
ral in Spain : " Some men have pushed their audacity 
to the execrable extremity of ashing permission to read 
the Bible." This was in 1750. 

No less than five bulls, from four Popes, have been 
sent forth against Bible societies in the last forty years ; 
one every eight years.* Pius VII. calls them " the 
most malignant of inventions, the destruction of the 
faith, a new hind of tares, an irreparable ruinP And in 
a brief issued to one of his bishops who had permitted 
some of the flock to purchase Bibles of one of the 
Societies, he says : 

* See one in Chap. IV., under the head of Intolerance. 



62 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

" We have been overwhelmed with much prof ound distress, on being 
made acquainted with the dismal project, such as was never conceived 
before, of disseminating everywhere the most holy books of the Bible in 
the new translations made contrary to the Church's salutary regula- 
tions" 

Leo XII. says : 

" Several of our predecessors have made laws for averting this 
scourge. In our own time, Pius VII., of happy memory, issued 
two briefs, In those briefs we find testimonies drawn either from 
Holy Scripture (!) or tradition, to show how hurtful this invention 
is to faith and morals ! And we, too, that we may acquit ourselves 
of our apostolic duty, exhort you to withdraw your flocks from these 
deadly pastures /" 

The Bible, the Word of Life, "Deadly Pastures" ! ! 

Pius the VIII. and Gregory XVI. followed the ex- 
ample of their illustrious predecessors ; and urged the 
bishops "to remove from the hands of the faithful the 
Bible." 

Pius IX. declares that " they are the enemies of human 
society who circulate the Bible." And this was only 
seven years ago. 

In Portugal it is a misdemeanor — a violation of law, 
a crime, to possess or read the Bible. The punishment 
is three years imprisonment. In Spain it is a crime to 
be punished " with death by fire."* In Savoy, the near- 
est point of which is only "two leagues from Geneva," 
it is imprisonment "for ten years in the Castle of Pig- 
nerol" ! In Tuscany, who does not know that it is a 
crime the penalty of which is loss of estates, and rank, 
and imprisonment? And in every Eoman Catholic 
country in Europe it is a crime to be punished with 
fines and imprisonment, or death. 

* She has somewhat relented. The Bible is now secretly read. 



KULE OF FAITH. 63 

Nor is this hellish malice directed against the Bible 
published by Protestants, as a Protestant Bible, as Eo- 
man Catholics sometimes affirm, but against the Bible 
itself. The above extracts clearly demonstrate this. 
But further : some of the Bibles circulated in France 
and burnt by priests, were published from a translation 
of the Vulgate, made years and years ago* by Sacy, a 
Eoman Catholic. The Bible, distributed in 1816 in 
Poland, which called forth the anathemas of Pius VII. , 
was printed from a translation of Wink, a Jesuit of 
1599. It is the Bible, then, against which Borne directs 
her impotent rage. It is a " deadly pasture ," a " school 
for heretics" a "forest that serves as a refuge for robbers" 
The Bible is against Borne, and therefore Borne is 
against the Bible. 

But let us listen to the blessed revealments of 
Heaven, in reference to the point involved in this 
singular controversy. "What is the voice of that gra- 
cious Being, who, in the dispensations of His mercy, 
has revealed to benighted man His mind, to " bring 
life and immortality to light" ? Has He proclaimed 
that the Bible is given for the priesthood alone, and by 
them to be expounded to the people, or for all men — 
to be put in the hands and engraven on the memory 
of every man ? A clear indication of His will surely 
ought to decide this question : 

" Beliold I have taught you statutes." " Keep, therefore, and do 
them, for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of 
the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this 
great nation is a wise and understanding people." * * * " Teach 
them thy sons, and thy sons' sons."* 

* Approved at the time by Eoman Catholic bishops, f Deut. iv. 5. 



64 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

" Gather the people together, men, and women, and children, and 
the stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that 
they may learn, and fear the Lord yonr God, and observe to do all 
the words of this law ; and that their children, which have not 
known anything, may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God."* 

" And when they shall say unto you, seek unto them that have 
familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep and that mutter — should 
not the people seek unto their God ? To the law and to the testi- 
mony : if they speak not according to this word, it is because there 
is no light in them."f 

" Seek ye out of the booh of the Lord and read."% 

" Search the Scriptures ; for in them ye think ye have eternal 
life ; and they are they which testify of me. * * * For had 
ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me ; for he wrote of me. 
But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words. "§ 

Now, this whole passage shows that the promiscuous 
multitude to whom Jesus spake in the Temple, pos- 
sessed or had access to and read the writings of Moses. 
Jesus commanded them to search his writings. 

" Jesus answered and said unto them," the Sadducees, " Ye do 
err, not lenowing tJie Scriptures"^ " Do ye not therefore err," said 
the Saviour as recorded by Mark, " because ye know not the Scrip- 
tures." " Have ye not read in the book of Moses V 

" These were more noble," the Bereans, " than those in Thessa- 
lonica, in that they receive the word with all readiness of mind, and 
searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so."^ 

Did Paul tell them they were wrong? Did St. 
Luke, in recording, under the inspiration of the Holy 
Ghost, their honest zeal, in searching the Scriptures, 
rebuke them ? Not one word of it. They were right ; 
Paul knew they were right ; and St. Luke approves. 

* Deut. xxxi. 12. f Isaiah vih. 19. % Isaiah xxxiv. 16. 

§ John v. 39, 46, 47. || Matt. xxii. 29. «tf Acts xvii 11. 



RULE OF FAITH. 65 

The inspired epistles of Paul, Peter and John, were 
addressed not to priests, but to the churches ; " the 
brethren" at Eome, (where was Peter?) Corinth, 
Philippi ; " to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, 
Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia," and to a 
" lady and her children."* By them they were to be 
read and sent to others to he circulated. 

"I charge you, by the Lord, that this epistle be read 
unto all the holy brethren" wrote Paul to the Corin- 
thians. 

Dr. Clarke, in commenting on this passage, says : — 

" There must have been some particular reason for this solemn 
charge ; he certainly had some cause to suspect that the epistle 
would be suppressed in some way or other, and that the whole 
Church would not be permitted to hear it. There is no doubt that 
the apostles designed that their epistles should be copied and sent 
to all the Churches in the vicinity of that to which they were 
directed." 

And in connection with this charge, speaking of the 
"mystery of iniquity" Dr. Clarke very properly adds : 

" Whatever may be intended here by the words, ' mystery of 
iniquity,' we may safely assert that it is a mystery of iniquity to 
deny the use of the sacred Scriptures to the common people ; and that 
the Church that does so is afraid to come to the light. Nothing 
can be more preposterous and monstrous than to call people to em- 
brace the doctrines of Christianity, and refuse them the opportunity 
of consulting the book in which they are contained. Persons who 
are denied the use of the sacred writings may be manufactured into 
different forms and modes, and be mechanically led to believe cer- 
tain dogmas, and perform certain religious acts ; but without the 
use of the Scriptures they never can be intelligent Christians ; they 
do not search the Scriptures, and therefore they cannot know Him 

See 1 Peter, i. 1 ; 2 John i. 1 ; See Colossians, iv. 1G. 






66 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

of whom these Scriptures testify. The mystery of iniquity contained 
in this prohibition works now, and has worked long ; but did it 
work in the apostles' times ? Did it work in the Church of Thessa- 
lonica ? Is it possible that the present crop should have been pro- 
duced from so remote a seed? What does that most solemn adju- 
ration of the apostle mean : ' I charge you by the Lord, that this 
epistle be read unto all the holy brethren 1 ? Why was such a charge 
necessary ? Why should it be given in so awful a manner ? Does 
it not absolutely imply that there would be attempts made to keep 
all the holy brethren from seeing this epistle ? And can we con- 
ceive that less was referred to in the delivery of this very awful ad- 
juration ? This mystery of iniquity did work then in the Christian 
Church ; even then attempts were made to hide the Scriptures from 
the common people. And does not this one consideration serve 
more to identify the prophecy than anything else ? The mystery of 
iniquity continues still to work ; and with all the pretensions of the 
Eomish Church, the Scriptures are in general withheld from the 
people, or suffered to be read under such restrictions, and with such 
notes, as totally subverts the sense of those pages on which this 
Church endeavors to build her unscriptural pretensions. It is gene- 
rally allowed that the Vulgate version is the most favorable to these 
pretensions ; and yet even that version the rulers of the Church 
dare not trust in the hands of any of their people, even under their 
general ecclesiastical restrictions, without their counteracting notes 
and comments. How strange is this ! Surely truth has nothing to 
fear from the Bible" 

On the other hand, there is not one word, in the 
Law or the Prophets, in the teachings of Jesus Christ 
or his Apostles, that can be construed, by any fair rules 
of exegesis, into the idea, that the Scripture was to be 
kept by priests from the people. There is not one 
word against their free circulation in every nation 
under heaven. 

What say the Fathers? Writing to a lady, St. 
Basil affirms : 



RULE OF FAITH. 67 

" If thou knowest how to search in Scripture, for the succors 
that it offers, thou wilt not have need either of me or of any one." 

St. Ambrose says : 

" Holy Scripture edifies everybody. We speak to Christ when we 
pray ; we listen to him when we read the Scriptures. 11 

Words that ought to be written with the point of a 
diamond in pictures of gold, and suspended in the 
dwelling of every man. 

" The heavenly oracles have been written for the whole human race. 
Even husbandmen are in a condition to learn, there, what it is fitting 
for them to know. The learned and the ignorant, children and women, 
may equally instruct themselves there." 

"It is for the whole people that the Apostles wrote. The laity ought 
to abound in the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures."^ 

" Continue to listen at church to the reading of Holy Scripture, 
and read it over again in your houses." f 

" When divine things are what we have to do with, should we bend 
our necks and submit at once to the opinions of others ? Consult, 
then, the Scriptures. The Holy Ghost intrusted the composition 
of them expressly to illiterate men, in order that every one, even the 
least educated, might understand the Word and profit by it. Let none 
offer me these wretched excuses : I must earn my bread ; I must 
find food for my children. It is not for me to read the Scriptures, 
but for those who have renounced the world. Poor man ! Is it 
then because thou art too much distracted with a thousand cares that 
it does not belong to thee to read the Scriptures ? But thou hast still 
more need of this than those who have withdrawn from the world in 
order to devote all their time to God" 

So wrote the eloquent, sincere, holy Chrysostom. 
Had he written an argument, by prophetic inspiration, 
against the present views and proscriptive course of 
Eome, he could not more fully have met her objections 
and answered her arguments. 

* St. Jerome. t St. Augustine. 



68 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

Polycarp, Clement of Eome, Origen, St. Bernard, 
whom Eome delights to honor, and a host of others, 
the moral heroes of the ages in which they lived, who 
illumined, as beacon - lights, many centuries of the 
struggling Church, are all of one mind, touching tins 
question. With one accord they exhort the people to 
" Search the Scriptures ;" " to be well exercised therein, 
that no part of them be unknown," " and to persevere 
in nourishing themselves in the Word of God." 

Every Council of the Church that alluded to the 
subject in any way, Nice, Chalcedon, &c, for nine 
hundred years, urged the circulation of the Scriptures, 
and the people to possess and read them. In the ninth 
century the voice of the Church was heard through the 
Council of Aix-la-Chapelle in the following earnest 
strain : 

" Let young women even love the Holy Scriptures. Let them 
draw wisdom from the books of Solomon ; form themselves to 
patience by reading the book of Job ; and then take up the Holy 
Gospels, never to quit them again.' 1 * 

Several of the Popes from the sixth to the tenth cen- 
tury, earnestly advocated the circulation and study of 
the Scriptures. I say from the sixth ; for up to that 
time the bishop, or humble pastor of Eome, should not 
be called by that inflated, unscriptural title. They 
were not Popes. They also advocated, with fervent 
zeal, the circulation and study of the Inspired Word. 

The Bible, then, was given for all. 

God himself declares, and the Apostolic Church 
teaches, that it was given for every creature. It was 

* Bungener. 



RULE OF FAITH. 69 

vouchsafed to be known and read of all men ; that the 
wayfaring man, in every clime, might not err in the 
way that leads up to life immortal. And he who reads 
and obeys its heavenly pages without priest's or con- 
fessor's consent, or bishop's license, humbly trusting in 
the grace of Him who inspired it, and the light and re- 
newing of the Holy Ghost, "shall come to Zion with 
songs of everlasting joy upon his head, and sorrow and 
sighing shall flee away." 

•" Yet there were at Trent, and there are still people who are 
ready to denounce as new, the idea that the Bible is for all ! It was 
thought monstrous that Luther should have translated it into the 
vulgar tongue ; what then did Jerome do when he translated it into 
the Latin? What did Uiphilas, one of the Fathers of Nice, do, 
when he translated it into the language of the Goths ? Why did 
the venerable Bede say with joy, that in his time Scripture was read 
in England in five different languages ? Why, according to Augus- 
tine, is it ' by the wisdom of God ' that Scripture, ' from one sole 
language in which it was originally, lias been multiplied into an in- 
finity of languages and dialects, in order that it may be diffused 
everywhere V Wherefore so many ages, so many councils, without 
the smallest word of blame directed against those daily exhortations, 
against that infinity of translations, against those efforts to prevent- 
there being a country, a village, a house) without the Bible ?"* 

It follows, then, the Bible having been given for 
every man, that it must be translated into the language 
of all men. How else can they know it as the will of 
God, the rule of faith, and understand, believe, and 
obey? 

* Even things without life giving sound, whether pipe or harp, 
except they give a distinction in the sounds, how shall it be known 

* Bungener's History of the Council of Trent. The most of the 
quotations from the Fathers I have taken from him. 



70 THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

what is piped or harped ? For if the trumpet give an uncertain 
sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle ? So likewise ye, 
except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how 
shall it be known what is spoken ? for ye shall speak into the air. 
There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none 
of them is without signification. Therefore, if I know not the 
meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian, 
and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian unto me. Wherefore, let 
him that speaketh in an unknown tongue pray that he may interpret. 
In the Church I had rather speak five words with my understand- 
ing, that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousand 
words in an unknown tongue."* 

Thus wrote an inspired Apostle ; and thus God has 
decided this question. 

When God, therefore, gave his law to the Hebrews, 
it was in Hebrew. When Jesus Christ taught, it was 
in the language of the people whom he taught. When 
the Evangelists and Apostles wrote, it was in the lan- 
guage that the people understood. When it became 
necessary that the "law and the prophets" should be 
known in Greek, they were translated, by learned 
Jews, into that language. And when the Latin became 
a prevailing tongue in the Church, the Hebrew Old 
Testament and the Greek New, were translated, mostly, 
by that eminent Father, Jerome, into that language. 
Hence called Vulgate.f That, w^ith certain emenda- 
tions,^ alterations and improvements, is the translation, 
the Bible which Eome declares "shall only be authen- 
tic!" and which she withholds, as we have seen, from 
the people, even in Latin, and which she utterly re- 
fuses to have translated into the vernacular tongues of 
the millions of the nations of the earth who are per- 

* 1 Cor. xiv. 7, &c. t Editio Vulgata. X See Bungener, p. 91. 



RULE OF FAITH. 71 

ishing for lack of knowledge. But why, we might ask, 
have a translation at all ? Why not declare the origi- 
nal Hebrew and Greek texts " only authentic" ? Why 
not keep the sacred oracles in the mother tongue of the 
sainted seers of Palestine, and in the flowing language 
of the mighty dead of Greece ? And if a translation 
into one language be allowable and right, why not into 
others ? Why not have an English, French, Spanish, 
German Bible ? The motives which were then right 
and acceptable in the sight of God surely are now ; the 
motives that moved the benevolent heart of the good 
Jerome to translate the Word of God, then locked up 
in the dead languages of the Hebrews and Greeks, into 
the language of the people of his day, are in full force 
now, and should move us, and ought to move Eome, 
to give it to all people in their own, their native dialects. 
This, thank God, Protestants have done, and are doing. 
And in this, again, they have shown that they are right, 
and compose the true Church, whose pillar and ground 
is the truth. 



CHAPTBE m. 

DOCTRINES OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

Infallibility. 

I shall now proceed to examine, in the light of 
Eevelation, some of the doctrines of- the Church of 
Borne; doctrines which have been decreed by her 
councils-general, or have emanated from her Popes, or, 
by common consent of the Church, have become set- 
tled dogmas in her creed. Are they drawn from and 
sustained by the Scriptures? If an honest, truthful 
examination, in answer to this question, demonstrates 
that they are not, but are in utter antagonism with the 
"Word of God, then, indeed, has she "fallen away," — 
is "the Man of Sin"— " the beast." 

And first in order, and first in importance, is Infalli- 
bility. This has never been decreed an article of faith 
by any Council or Pope ; it has always been deemed 
wholly unnecessary ; but it is not the less a settled 
doctrine of this Church. Popes and bishops, priests 
and people, have affirmed it, promulgated it, reiterated 
it, times without number. 

" Our Church," says an honored, faithful son of Konie* 
by virtue of her infallibility, to which she alone has an exclu- 
sive title, claims a divine right to regulate the faith of all 
Christians. This is our fundamental tenet, our stronghold ; if this 

* Thayer, quoted by Ousley. 
(72) 



DOCTEINES — INFALLIBILITY. 73 

be solid, the plain consequence is, that every Christian is bound to 
submit his conscience to her decisions, and to receive her interpre- 
tation of Scriptures. And until this, our foundation, be overturned, 
all attempts to show the usurpations of our Church are extremely 
ridiculous ; but when it is proved we are deceived in this, when this, 
our stronghold, is once destroyed, then, indeed, all our pretensions 
fall at once to the ground ; then only may the Scriptures be pleaded 
for as the only rule of faith, and the independency of conscience be 
established."* 

The Soman Catechism, that Bible of Eoman Catholic 
children, says, " The Church cannot err, either in the 
faith, or the rule of manners" 

Gregory XVI., in his encyclical letter of 1832, 
thus teaches : 

" It would be criminal and altogether contrary to the respect due 
to the laws of the Church, to carp at the discipline which it has 
established : as it is certain, to use the words of the Council of 
Trent in their thirteenth session, that the Church has been taught 
by Jesus Christ and his Apostles, that she is under the constant teach- 
ing of the Holy Ghost, it is altogether absurd to moot the idea of a 
regeneration — as if she could be thought capable of falling J 7 

But where does this infallibility reside ? This ques- 
tion has never yet been settled. There are in reference 
to it, views as wide apart, opinions as radically differ- 
ent, emphatically entertained and put forth by all 
orders and parties in the Church of Kome, as have ever 
divided Protestants on any question so vital. So much 
for the vaunted unity of "the Church." One party 
affirms, that it resides in the Pope, and in him alone. 
Hear Lainez in the Council of Trent; Lainez, the 
general of the Jesuits and successor of Loyola, the 
pampered friend and mouth-piece of Pius IV. : 

* This is the hated higher-law doctrine in naked impudence. 

4 



74 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

" Each bishop is fallible ; an assembly of bishops therefore is fallible 
also,* and if you admit their decisions as infallible, you admit, by 
that of itself, that this infallibility comes from elsewhere — that is to 
say, from the Pope, for he alone is called to confirm its decrees. Did 
the authority of Councils proceed from the bishops who compose 
them, how could we give the name of councils-general to those which 
were never reckoned more than a very small part of the episcopal 
body ? Under Paul III.,f have we not seen the most important 
questions decided by fewer than fifty bishops ? If their decrees 
have become laws of the Church, it is not, evidently, because fifty 
bishops have been found of the same opinions, but because the Pope, 
approving of their opinions, has given them the force of law. In 
every Council, however numerous, if the Pope be present, it is the 
Pope alone who proa ounces ; witness the formula Approbante 
concilio or Prcesente councilio, employed in this case, according to 
which it is clear that the Pope begins by pronouncing, and that the 
part of the bishops is reduced to a simple declaration of adhesion, a 
declaration which they could not refuse, either individually or as a 
body."J 

This doctrine was received with marked approbation 
by a large majority of the Council ; the partisans of 
the Pope. Pius IV., and his court, hailed it secretly, 
with demonstrations of joy. It was therefore the Pope's 
and even the Council's theory of infallibility. It was the 
doctrine of the Jesuits and of the Ultramontane party. 
It is their doctrine now. And they now compose eight- 
tenths of the Eoman Catholic Church. But it was met 
with keen criticism, and a stern spirit of opposition by 

* This is good sense and good logic also. 

t The first session of that very council (Trent) under Paul III., there 
were present three legates, four archbishops, and twentv-two bishops 
— twenty-nine in all. The second, forty-three prelates, all told. And 
that was a general council. 

X Quoted by Bungener. See, also, Pallivicini. 



DOCTRINES — INFALLIBILITY. 75 

the Gallican party, mostly French and German prelates, 
and by some Spanish bishops. 

" The Church, then," they retorted, " is no longer the spouse of 
Jesus Christ, but a slave prostituted to the caprice of a man ! This 
monstrous system, invented scarcely fifty years ago, we must hear 
supported in full Council ! By whom ? By an isolated and unknown 
doctor ? No ; by a man openly protected by the Pope, openly 
cried up at Rome as the champion of the Church. The other re- 
ligious orders, it would appear, have not done enough of mischief 
so that a new one" (the Jesuits) " was required, already more famous 
for its encroachments within, than for its successes without the 
Church. If ever there were Councils in which the Pope alone pro- 
nounced, it was an abuse and a usurpation. In the decree of the 
Council of Jerusalem, transcribed at length in the book of the Acts, 
the preamble runs — ' The apostles, and elders, and brethren. 1 Not 
only is St. Peter not mentioned, but the decree is drawn up in con- 
formity with the advice of St. James, who spoke the last."* 

Is not this a sufficient refutation of Papal infallibility ? 
A refutation all the more acceptable because it came 
from as high, as able, and as honorable members as 
any in the Council. At any rate, it is good Protes- 
tantism. Had the Lutherans been admitted to the 
Council, they could not have spoken out, in so many 
words, with more historical truth, and correct Scrip- 
tural exegesis. 

But what theory did they, the (xallicans and oppo- 
nents of Lainez and his party, the Ultramontane, advo- 
cate ? for they firmly held the dogma of infallibility. 
Why, that councils-general, legally summoned, and 
legally organized, are infallible. Their views are 
somewhat confused and contradictory. That, as I 
shall show, in the proper place, was singular demon- 

* Sarpi and Pallivicini differ in their details of this controversy. 



76 THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

station of their infallibility. But listen to one of the 
bishops who, at the opening of the Council, affirmed 
that it could not err, and yet it seems from other asser- 
tions, believed as much of the Pope : 

" The time is come when God must speak, and will speak. Were 
you to remain in impenitence" (!) said he to his brethren, " do not 
go on to imagine that thus you would have it in your power to shut 
the mouth of God / Happen what may in that respect, the Holy 
Ghost will find it easy to open yours, and employ it in his service. 
* * * * if y 0ur hearts are pure, so much the better ; if they are 
not, still the voice of the Council will not the less be God's voice I" 

The Gralliean, or, as I may call it, liberal party, 
warmly advocate this theory to this day, and will have 
no other. The writings and speeches of their ablest 
divines and prelates abound with arguments to de- 
monstrate that infallibility resides only in councils- 
general, and, by consequence, not in the Pope. 

Another theory: A party, once very numerous, 
but now greatly in the minority, if it exist at all, 
teaches that the Council and the Pope, the Pope at its 
head, are infallible ; that infallibility can only be pre- 
dicated of this union. One of this class thus defines 
their views : 

" Infallibility is not in the Pope, nor is it in a Council, in the whole 
of the bishops together, but it is in the majority of the bishops united 
with their head, the Pope."* 

" I venture not to cast the smallest doubt on the infallibility of 
councils-general ; all I say is, that it holds this high privilege of its 
head, to whom the promises were made."f 

Another party, (how many are there touching this 
"fundamental tenef of " the Church," which is a unit?) 

* Thayer. t De Maistre. 



DOCTEINES — INFALLIBILITY. 77 



teach.es that infallibility resides in the zvhole Church, 
the Pope, cardinals, bishops, orders, priests, people. 
A few able names support this theory. It is kindred 
to the one last named. 

To avoid the difficulties growing out of these theories 
— and they all have insuperable ones — Duperron ad- 
vances another. It is neither ingenious, nor escapes 
the sophistries that environ the question, and withal, 
is rejected by all parties. Hear him : 

" The infallibility presupposed as residing in the Pope, is not 
meant as implying that he is aided by God's Spirit in having the 
necessary illumination for deciding all questions, but it consists in 
this, that all the questions in which he feels himself sufficiently assist- 
ed with the light required for judging them, he decides, but with re- 
spect to others in which he does not feel himself sufficiently assisted 
with light, he remits to the Council." 

The " presupposed" infallibility of the Pope then is 
intermittent/ He is infallible and not infallible! In 
a word, if inspired, he is infallible, but if the divine 
" illumination" come not, he is an erring man again ! 
This is true certainly ; all Protestants will unhesita- 
tingly admit this. Who would not ? But what if the 
Pope should be mistaken ? — and say what you will, he 
is not inspired. What if he imagine that he has " the 
light required for judging," and it be but the scintil- 
lations of a disordered brain, or the false glare of an 
excited fancy? And the history of the papacy de- 
monstrates that both these suppositions have again and 
again occurred. Momentous questions of faith, bind- 
ing the souls of men, and affecting their eternal inter- 
ests, have been decided without "the light required to 



7S THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

judge" infallibly. The " infallibility presupposed," 
therefore, in all such cases, did not exist. 

But another fatal objection lies against this hypo- 
thesis. The Popes have never, I believe, "remitted'' 
questions " to the Council," believing or acknowledging 
that they had not "sufficient light" to decide them. 
Paul IV., and a host of others, maintain directly the 
reverse. Through form, or to legalize them, they 
have been "remitted." Duperron, therefore, is unwit- 
tingly made to advocate the theory that the Pope only 
is infallible ; an untenable dogma, to escape which his 
hypothesis was conceived. It merits no further reply. 
Once more, and finally : 

" Infallibility in the spiritual order, and sovereignty in the tem- 
poral order, are two perfectly synonymous words. When we say 
that the Church is infallible, we do not ask any special privilege 
for it ; we only ask that it should enjoy rights common to all pos- 
sible sovereignties, all of which should necessarily reign as infallible, 
for all government is absolute ; and from the moment that it may 
be resisted under the pretext of error and injustice, it no longer 
exists." 

This is the theory of Be Maisire, in his work Du Pape. 
It can certainly meet with but little favor with any 
party. Why, whoever dreamed before, that temporal 
sovereigns, resisted or not resisted, are infallible in any 
proper sense of that term. Do they ever claim it? 
But if they do, what then is gained ? Her most Catho- 
lic Majesty of Spain, steeped in corruption as she is, 
and the quibbling, persecuting, blood-thirsty Emperor 
of Austria, are as far from it as the Arabian Nights 7 
Entertainment is from being a rule of faith. This 



DOCTKIKES— INFALLIBILITY. 79 

theory, therefore, effectually ignores infallibility. 
Hence, I shall not allude to it again. 

There are then half a dozen theories put forth, and 
learnedly, zealously advocated, shall I say, by the 
infallible, in reply to the question, where does infalli- 
bility reside ? How many more have been suggested, 
and how many more will see the light, who can tell ? 
But, notwithstanding, "the Church is infallible' 1 ' 1 ! "can- 
not err," cannot "be thought capable of falling" \ Oh 
no! This " is a fundamental tenet ," " her foundation ," 
11 her stronghold.'''' Very well. "Where is it then ? 
where are we to look for it ? Is the Pope infallible ? 
No ! a multitude, from the very bosom of the Church, 
reply. Are councils-general infallible ? No ! a more 
numerous multitude with startling emphasis reply. 
Are councils-general and the Pope united, infallible ? 
No ! no ! respond Popes, Jesuits, Ultramontanists, 
Gallicans. Does it reside in the whole Church ? No ! 
respond the same excited, widely-separated parties, 
united only in this negation. Where is it then ? We 
are anxious ; we are interested to know. Where is it 
then ? No response is heard ; the oracle is dumb, and 
will forever be dumb. For the simple reason that one 
single word forms the only rational, tenable reply that 
can be given — it is nowhere ! 

But let us examine these theories save the last two 
somewhat more at length. Does infallibility, then, re- 
side in the Pope ? as taught by Lainez, in the face of 
the assembled wisdom and might of Eoman Catholic- 
ism, at Trent ; and as boldly affirmed by Paul IV., 
and a host of others. I unhesitatingly and confiden- 
tially take the negative. Here, then, we are at issue. 



80 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

Logically, the onus probandi is with the affirmative. I 
will not wait, however, for arguments and facts, clear 
and convincing, to demonstrate the truth of this theory ; 
they will never come : I will, as I think can easily be 
done, demonstrate the contrary — that the Pope is but 
a fallible, erring man. I will meet this question fairly 
and fully ; examine it as thoroughly as the brief space 
allowed for the investigation will permit ; aye, sift it to 
the very bottom. And fortunately for me and for the 
world, the history of the Popes is before us. What 
they have believed, said, done, is on record. From 
hence we snatch our weapons ; draw our arguments. 
Let us then go up this stream, muddy as it is, to its 
very source ; and examine its edyings, shoals, depths 
and meanderings. 

And first of all, the Pope is not infallible in morals. 

When Gregory XVI. died, the immediate predeces- 
sor of him who now wears the tiara, masses were said 
throughout the Eoman Catholic world for the repose 
of his soul. What! masses said, prayers uttered, 
sacrifices offered up for the repose of the soul of him 
who was infallible ! And said and offered, too, by the 
very priest, and in the presence of the very people, 
who had called him " holy Father," and bowed to him 
as infallible ! All this occurred, and in these United 
States not a dozen years ago. But what could disturb 
him, "the holy Pope Gregory," in eternity? He left 
behindhim two fine daughters, who now reside in Eome ;* 
though beyond the law of God, he was bound by an 
oath of celibacy ! 

* This is well known to travellers who visit Rome 



DOCTRINES — INFALLIBILITY. 81 

Paul III. made his son a duke,* and his grandsons 
cardinals, to the great scandal, says a historian, of 
morals and religion in Italy. Bungener thus speaks 
of him, and speaks truthfully: 

" He expired on the 10th of Nov. 1549, charged with a very- 
heavy load of deeds to be answered for in the eyes of religion and 
of history. God struck in the quarter where his offences had been 
greatest. After having trampled under foot all laws, and all the 
proprieties of life, in his eagerness to load with wealth and honors 
the children whom he should have blushed to own, it was on hear- 
ing of the treason of his grandson Octavius, secretly in league with 
the emperor, that he felt his end approach. In less than three days 
he died. Had he in his last moments any re-awakenings of conscience 
and signs of piety ? Did the first gleams of eternity, as he ap- 
proached it, make him see at last in its true light his long course 
of trickery with the strong, of violence with the weak, of lies to men 
and to God ?" * * * * * "In him, we have not to do with striking 
and isolated crimes ; his life exhibits a long tissue of immoralities, 
that are neither murders nor incests, but for which Eoman Catho- 
licism and the popedom remain and will eternally remain in part 
responsible." 

Now, can even a candid Kornan Catholic believe 
that he was infallible ? Did the prelates and priests, 
and people of his day, in the midst of all his trickery 
and oppression, ever dream that he could not err ? 
"Why, even Pallivicini ; who was ever ready with sub- 
terfuges and denials, to throw the mantle of charity 
over his masters, does not intimate that he was pure. 
" Prince of glorious memory!" he exclaimed, "he 
showed himself man only in the excess of his affection 
for his own ; in all other respects he merited in the eyes 
of the Church the name of hero." Not one word of 

* Pallivicini states this without any palliation 
4* 



82 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

infallibility ; lie knew full well that in him it resided 
not. " Prince of glorious memory ;" the father of ille- 
gitimate children ! "Man in the excess of his affec- 
tion for his own ;" gave his son a dukedom and his 
two grandsons cardinals' hats I* "In all other respects 
he merited the name of hero ;" intrigued with Charles 
V. and Francis I. ; made overtures and pledges to each 
against the other ; promised men and means to march 
against the Protestants ; and finally, to appease the 
wrath of the emperor, who had launched a terrible 
protest against him,f offered to proclaim him King of 
England, and to furnish him with troops for the con- 
quest of that kingdom ! 

His position, we know, was environed with difficul- 
ties. The Eeformation had swept away kingdoms and 
provinces from the domain of the Church. Its march 
was onward. Charles V., though at heart a bigoted 
Eomanist, to give peace to his empire, and stability to 
his throne, desired and urged upon "his Holiness" to 
make some concessions to the Protestants. He further- 
more demanded that the Pope reform himself, his 
court, and that bishops be declared such, jure divino. 
To all which Paul was irreconcilably opposed. Francis 
also demanded some reform at Eome — the Pope's court 
must have been fearfully corrupt — and the doctrine of 
divine right. And, besides, Francis and Charles had 
been engaged in a deadly struggle, and the smothered 
fire still burnt in their hearts. To openly favor the 

* One was fourteen and the other sixteen years old. 

t Pallivicini says, " This was a thunder-clap launched by a Jupiter 
who had the lightning in his hand." Where was the thunder of the 
Jupiter of the Vatican? — Bungener. 



DOCTRINES — INFALLIBILITY. 83 

latter, was to turn the diplomacy, and perhaps sword 
of the former, against him. And to espouse the cause 
of Francis, was to provoke another "thunder-clap" 
from the " Jupiter who had the lightning in his hands." 
What was he to do ? Promise, as he did, and deceive ? 
Intrigue, advance, retreat? Exhausts the arts of diplo- 
macy, in endless evasions, and then, as he did, threaten 
the wrath of St. Peter? Why did not infallibility 
clip the Gordian knot and guide him out of this laby- 
rinth ? Why ? Oh ye advocates of papal infallibility, 
answer. Had the pure-minded, heroic, inspired Paul, 
the apostle, been there, all these difficulties had vanished 
as mist before the rising sun ; and the charge of 
double-dealing, of falsehood, would never have stained 
his fair fame. 

Clement VII., Paul's immediate predecessor, was en- 
vironed with similar, or greater difficulties, and was 
guilty of as much dissimulation and falsehood. The 
royal conscience of Henry VIIL, of England, was 
troubled to live with Catharine, his lawful queen, who 
had been the wife of his brother, now deceased.* He 
asked Clement to divorce him. He promised. Charles 
V., the brother of Catharine, demurred, with threats of 
dire ruin to all concerned. Clement promised him in 
turn that he would not divorce Henry. Then com- 
menced a race of diplomacy unparalleled in the corrupt 
annals of that Satanic art. Henry pressed his suit, and 
the Pope lent him one ear, and made him gracious 
promises. Charles returned again and again to the 
charge, and the Pope, with agitated nerves, lent him 
the other ear, and emphatically declared that he never 
* He was enamored with one of her maids. 



84 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

would grant the divorce. The affairs of the emperor 
haying taken an unfavorable turn, as he was pressed 
by the heroic arms of Francis L, who was backed by 
the sympathy and good will of Henry, and might be 
any moment by his sword, Clement granted the desired 
boon, and sent Cardinal Campeggio to the court of 
England with the divorce. But suddenly a new evo- 
lution changed everything. Charles triumphed in 
Italy, and said sternly to the Pope, " We are deter- 
mined to defend the Queen of England against King 
Henry's injustice." Alarmed, the Pope sent out four 
messengers with fresh instructions to Campeggio. 
They were to take different roads, and travel in all 
haste to overtake him. The plan succeeded ; the legate 
received his master's letters. "What now does the 
Pope say? "In the first place, protract your journey. 
In the second place, when you reach England, use 
every endeavor to reconcile the king and queen. In 
the third place, if you do not succeed, persuade the 
queen to take the veil. And in the last place, if she 
refuses, do not pronounce any sentence favorable to the 
divorce, without a new and express order from me. 
This is the essential : Summum et maximum manda- 
turn"* The legate obeyed instructions to the letter. 
Many slow months rolled away ere he reached Eng- 
land. Then, with the divorce in his pocket, nothing 
was done. Cardinal "Wolsey, Henry's minister, was 
deceived and ruined. Campeggio returned to Eome. 
Clement, under the powerful egis of Charles, finally re- 
fused the divorce, and peremptorily summoned Henry 
to Eome, and in case of failure, condemned him to pay 

* Saunders and D'Aubigne. 



DOCTRINES — INFALLIBILITY. 85 

a fine of 10,000 ducats. The proud Tudor was enraged 
beyond all bounds; broke with the Pope, and was 
divorced from Catharine by his parliament. 

I have no sympathy with, or word of praise for, Eng- 
land's royal debauchee. Henry was a wretch, a disgrace 
to his name and race. The Pope was right not to divorce 
him from the noble Catharine. But why did he prom- 
ise it ? Why enter into negotiation with Henry with 
the view, with the express understanding, to accommo- 
date him ? "Why spin out the tangled web for years, and 
traverse the corrupt labyrinths of diplomacy, which is 
frequently but another name for deception, and then 
violate every promise, and damn King Henry for doing, 
in his own way, what he had promised? Why? 
Will Lainez, will any advocate of this theory answer, 
" He was infallible"? No other reply can be given, or 
everything is lost. Yes, he was infallible in all this ; 
or the doctrine of papal infallibility is indee d a doc- 
trine of men, of seducing spirits, and a blasphemy. 

Pope Alexander VI. was a monster of iniquity. 
Adultery, incest, murder, t with him, were familiar 
crimes, were committed, one is almost ready to think, 
for pastime. He was more than a counterpart of the 
hated Caligula. "The spot on earth," says a histo- 
rian,* " where all iniquity met and overflowed, was 
the Pontiff's seat. The dissolute entertainments given 
by the Pope and his son and daughter are such as can 
neither be described nor thought of. The most im- 
pure groves of ancient worship saw not the like." He 
finally perished miserably by poison, which he had 

* D'Aubigne. 



86 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

prepared with his own hand for one of his wealthy 
cardinals. 

Now, was that body, impure with every vice, loath- 
some with surfeited corruption, the temple of the Holy 
Ghost ? Was that heart — " the cage of unclean birds," 
the secret reservoir of every crime — the dwelling-place 
of the Holy One ? Was that mind, that ever effervesced 
with untamed, demon-like passions, the infallible chan- 
nel of God's favor and instruction to the Church? But 
one answer, an affirmative one, must unhesitatingly be 
given, or, I repeat, all is lost. Yes, "that mind, teem- 
ing with so many infamous ideas, had only to wish it, 
in order to its being put into a condition for sounding 
the most unfathomable mysteries without a chance of 
error. That hand, which was so skilled in the man- 
agement of poisons, it depended only on himself to 
employ in tracing lines as holy, as venerable, as infal- 
lible, as those of a St. Paul or a St. John."* Yes, all 
this must be affirmed, or papal infallibility is a miser- 
able, absurd heresy. But the affirmation will avail 
nothing: all intelligent, candid men, will certainly, 
sooner or later, proclaim that it is an absurd, damning 
error, I trust, even at Eome itself. 

Listen to a voice from the bosom of the Church : 

"At a time when courtesans, monsters of licentiousness and wick- 
edness, taking advantage of the public disorders, disposed of all 
things at Kome, and contrived to place their sons and their lovers 
on the seat of St. Peter, I most expressly deny that those men 
were Popes, "t 

This would sweep away infallibility, and the papacy 
itself, at a blow. Not Popes ? What, then, were they ? 

* Bungener. j See Maestri. 



i 



DOCTRINES — INFALLIBILITY. 87 

They were called by that name, and occupied the so- 
called chair of St. Peter. They were regarded by the 
Church then, and have been ever since, in every sense, 
as bona fide Popes. Not to admit it is to destroy an- 
other fundamental tenet of " Mother Church." 

Pope Liberius was publicly proclaimed, by Hilary, 
Bishop of Poictiers, a liar. Hilary anathematized him 
for this and other immoralities : "I anathematize a 
second and a third time, Liberius, the prevaricator." 

The Emperor Charles V., through his ambassadors 
at the Council of Trent, demanded, among other reform- 
atory measures, " That the Pope reform both himself 
and his court!" This speaks " trumpet-tongued " of 
the debaucheries and crime of "his Holiness" and the 
court of the "Holy See" ! Charles was no pietist, and 
hated Luther and the doctrines of regeneration and 
holiness preached by Protestants. 

But it would be almost an endless task to bring in 
review every corrupt Pope, and the impurity and gross 
immoralities which stain his history. But few, for the 
last thousand years, have been even outwardly moral. 
The graphic sketch of Macaulay does not bring out the 
picture in all its dark shades. Of the court of these 
infallible Pontiffs, and of them, he says : 

" During the generation which preceded the Eeformation, that 
court had been a scandal to the Christian name. Its annals are 
black with treason, murder, and incest. Even its more respectable 
members were utterly unfit to be ministers of religion. They were 
men like Leo X. ; men who, with the Latinity of the Augustan 
age, had acquired its Atheistical and scoffing spirit." * * * 
" Their years glided by in a soft dream of sensual and intellectual 
voluptuousness. Choice cookery, delicious wines, lovely women, 
hounds, falcons, horses, newly-discovered manuscripts of the classics, 



88 THE GEEAT APOSTASY. 

sonnets and burlesque romances in the sweetest Tuscan, just as licen- 
tious as a fine sense of the graceful would permit ; plates from the 
hand of a Benvenuto ; designs for palaces by Michael Angelo j 
frescoes by Eaphael ; busts, mosaics, and gems just dug up from 
among the ruins of ancient temples and villas, — these things were the 
delight and even the serious business of their lives" 

Nothing can be more clear, therefore, than that the 
Popes have not been infallible in morals. Fallibility, 
in common with the bishops, and our fallen race, is 
stamped upon the acts, the history of their lives. 

The Pope is not infallible in doctrines. 

I will not stop to inquire here, how a man can be 
infallible in faith and corrupt in morals. This doctrine, 
I know, has been advocated by Eoman Catholic teach- 
ers in certain quarters. A Priest, it is said, has two 
characters ; a character as a man, and a character as a 
Priest. As a man he may be corrupt ; and yet at the 
same time, as a Priest, be pure, and God's minister. 
This is Manicheanism, which, in the fourth century, 
was condemned by the Church. It is in conflict with 
the Scriptures and common sense. It is most wicked 
and absurd. "By their fruits ye shall know them" 
taught the infallible Teacher. Know what? Their 
interior life, faith, doctrine. Know whether they be of 
God, or of Satan. 

But let us turn again to the lives of the Popes and 
examine their doctrines. This shall detain us but a 
few moments. And the question I wish now to ex- 
amine is not, have they been drawn from and sustained 
by the " rule of faith" ? but have they been uniformly 
the same, and always received by the Church. 

Pope MaTcellus, as stated by Sarpi, was a firm be- 



DOCTRINES — INFALLIBILITY. 89 

liever in astrology, and consulted the planets as much 
as the Scriptures. 

" Paul III.," says Kanke, " would never open any important 
meeting of the Sacred College ; never would he set out on a jour- 
ney, without consulting the constellations. An alliance with France 
met with several delays, because he had not found a conformity be- 
tween the birth of the King and his own." 

These views gave no evidence to those around them, 
of infallibility in matters of faith. Some regretted and 
deplored them ; others laughed at them. Three cen- 
turies have hid all that from the eyes of millions ; and 
bright visions of holiness and infallibility fill their 
minds. Truly 

" Distance lends enchantment to the view." 

Leo X. was deeply imbued with infidelity. Indeed, 
a number of able historians have charged him with 
being a semi-atheist, and the charge has never been re- 
futed. 

Innocent III. decreed — decrees of the Popes are not 
only expressions of their views, or faith, but are re- 
ceived as settled dogmas of the Church — that a mar- 
riage of Philip Augustus was " adulterous and null." 
Afterwards by another solemn decree legitimized the 
children born of that union. 

Clement VII. conferred on Henry VIII. the flatter- 
ing title of " Defender of the Faith," and subsequently 
anathematized him and put his kingdom under inter- 
dict. 

Innocent XII. fully approved Fenelon's l ' Maximes des 
Saints" "and then, on being solicited by a king, and 
after two years of resistance, condemned it." 



90 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

Cardinal Baronius, writing of some of the corruptions 
of the ninth century, says : 

" For one hundred and fifty years together the Popes were rather 
apostates than apostles, and they were thrust into the papal chair 
by the power of harlots, and the violence of the princes of Tus- 
cany ; they were monsters, men of most base life, most destructive 
morals, and in every manner most defiled." 

A Eomish divine thus boldly speaks : 

" Many of the Popes of Eome have erred ; Marcellus sacrificed to 
idols, Liberius and Felix were Arians, Anastasius II. was deposed 
for heresy." 

A Pope deposed for heresy ! Two Popes Arians ! 
Liberius, every intelligent Eoman Catholic knows, was 
an Arian for years ; he excommunicated Athanasius, 
the orthodox hero of the Council of Nice, and " author 
of the Eoman Symbol;" and was himself anathema- 
tized by a bishop ! His doctrines have been condemned 
by Popes and Councils. 

Gregory the Great, in the close of the sixth century, 
writing to John, Bishop of Constantinople, says : 

" Our Lord said to his deciples, Be not ye called rabbi, for one 
is your Master, and all ye are brethren. What, therefore, most dear 
brother, are you, in the terrible examination of the coming Judge, 
to say, to desire to be called, not father only, but the general father of 
the world. * * * * I beg, I entreat, and I beseech, 
with all possible suavity, that your brotherhood resist all these 
flatterers who offer you this name of error, and that you refuse to be 
designated by so foolish and so proud an appellation. * 
Eestrain yourself from this name of proud and foolish usurpation. 
* * * None of the saints would ever have himself called 
universal. How he must swell with pride who covets to be called 
by this name, which no true saint would presume to accept." 



DOCTEINES — INFALLIBILITY. 91 

In an address to the Emperor Mauritus, concerning 
the usurpations of this same bishop, Gregory affirms, 
that, — 

" This brother by a presumption never before known, contrary to 
the precepts of the Gospel, and to the decrees of the canons, usurping 
a new name, glorying in a new and profane title, which blasphemy 
be far from every Christian heart, would be called universal bishop ; 
but in this his pride what doth he but show the time of Antichrist 
approaches. * * * * The Church that hath consented 
to that profane name, hath rushed headlong from its state. * * 
* * To consent to that wicked word universal, is nothing else 
but to destroy the faith" 

But a few years had elapsed ere the bishops of 
Eome were guilty of assuming "the foolish and proud 
appellation" — " that profane name," " that wicked word 
universal bishop" " which no true saint would presume 
to accept." Had not " the time of Antichrist approach- 
ed" — come? 

The faith, the doctrine of Gregory, therefore, and 
that of scores of his successors, are in irreconcilable 
conflict. If he was infallible they could not have been ; 
and if they were, he was not But all, according to the 
theory under review, were infallible, and all have been 
put in the calendar as saints I 

In a word, history demonstrates beyond all cavil, 
that one Pope has decreed one thing, and another has 
nullified it and decreed the contrary. 

Popes have authoritatively promulgated certain dog 
mas, and Councils have vetoed them, and decreed the 
reverse. 

In the momentous concerns of faith, therefore, in- 
fallibility does not reside in the Pope. In doctrine, when 



92 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

lie turns away from " the law and the testimony," " the 
sure word of the Lord," to follow the dim, uncertain 
light of tradition, or " cunningly-devised fables," or 
pretended illuminations which, alas ! has been times 
without number— he is as fallible in faith as in morals. 
Another fact, that stands out prominently on the 
historic page, which, if it do not in itself utterly de- 
stroy the theory of Papal infallibility, shrouds it with 
so much darkness that the most acute mind cannot 
tell where it is. I allude to the schisms which have 
so often distracted the Eoman Catholic Church, and 
which have scattered her boasted doctrine of unity to 
the winds; to the fact that two, three, and even four 
Popes, have frequently claimed, vigorously contended 
for, even unto blood, and occupied, at the same time, 
the chair of St. Peter. Each regarded himself as the 
true Pope, and many prelates, and many of " the faith- 
ful," regarded each as such. In the fourteenth century 
" there were several Popes at the same time," says 
Cardinal Baronius, " for many years two or three to- 
gether, each having his church, anathematizing the 
others and their churches, and calling them devils and 
Antichrist." In the fifteenth century there were three 
at one time, Benedict XII, Gregory XIII, and John 
XXIII. , all of whom were deposed by the Council of 
Constance, and the Council then elected Martin V. 
Prom the middle of the third to the middle of the 
fifteenth century, there were twenty-four schisms. 
There were more or less in every century in this long 
period but one, and in the eleventh there were five ! 
Where, then, was infallibility? In the schismatic 
Popes., who for years wore the tiara and swayed the 



DOCTRINES — INFALLIBILITY. 93 

sceptre over the Church, who offered up the " sacrifice 
of the mass for the living and the dead," and issued 
bulls to regulate the faith ? "Who was the schismatic 
Pope, or Popes ? Can any man living tell ? Can the 
infallibility of the present pontiff divine ? Was the 
Pope elected by a Council, or thrust into St. Peter's 
and upon the Church by the sword of a wicked emperor, 
any the less schismatic than the Popes deposed, any 
the more infallible than they ? And if infallibility did 
not reside in the schismatic Popes, where was it while 
they reigned over the Church ? when they were de 
posed ? while the Council was electing another ? or 
when a wicked emperor, or king, foisted one upon the 
Church? And finally, where is infallibility when 
death has robbed the Church of the true Pope ? Ac- 
cording to this theory it has passed away from her, and 
will not return till a true successor " sitteth in the 
temple of God ;" and consequently, human wisdom 
is left to itself, in the delicate choice of one in whom 
this attribute is to reside, and who is to give infallible 
doctrines to the Church ; doctrines that will affect for 
weal or woe the eternal destiny of untold millions. 
Take any view, then, of this question, look at it 
from any standpoint, and the conclusion forces itself 
upon the mind, that the Pope is not infallible ; nay, that 
the doctrine of papal infallibility is not only false, but 
absurd. And it is lamentably true that it is an error 
around which crystallizes a thousand other errors ; the 
parent of other heresies, and corruptions, and untold 
evils. Well then might the indignant Gallicans in 
the Council of Trent, who saw at a glance the abyss 



94 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

into which it would plunge them, exclaim, "The Church 
then is no longer the spouse of Jesus Christ, but a 
slave prostituted to the caprice of a man! 11 

Next in order, and perhaps in importance, is the 
theory, that infallibility resides in councils-general. 
This, it will be remembered, is the theory of the Gralli- 
cans, who utterly reject the one just refuted. It was 
once the doctrine of a large portion, if not a majority, 
of the Eoman Catholic Church ; but is now held by 
a comparatively small, but respectable minority : a 
minority that is constantly diminishing. It will not be 
necessary, therefore, to detain the reader with an elabo- 
rate refutation. 

In the first place, there never was, and perhaps 
never will be, a general Council, — a Council of the whole 
Church. The Council of Trent, that passed in re- 
view, and decreed, and sent forth, with anathemas, all 
the peculiar doctrines of the Church of Eome against 
which Protestants inveighed, and which they rejected, 
was composed of a very small minority, an infinitesi- 
mal number of those entitled to seats, and who had 
been invited by the Pope's brief to attend. Indeed, 
for months, less than fifty members, of thousands, 
were present. In the first two sessions less than that 
number transacted business, and with not more than 
that number important doctrines were decreed. And 
at no one time was there a very large attendance.* 
Whole kingdoms and large Eoman Catholic countries 
were not represented by a single bishop. It was not, 
therefore, an ecumenical or general Council. " It became 

* Gahaa, a Roman Catholic historian, puts the highest number who 
attended at any one time at 287. 



DOCTKIKES — INFALLIBILITY. 95 

such," it is replied, "by the sole fact of its having been 
universally approved by the Church." But this 
changes the whole ground and destroys the theory. 
If it be necessary for the Church universaHy to ap- 
prove, how will that approval be known ? then, five 
members will answer as well as five thousand, for in- 
fallibility resides in that approval. The Council is 
fallible, its decrees fallible without such approval. If, 
therefore, there have been no councils-general — and I 
affirm there have not ; and say what you will, the 
Council of Trent was not — this hypothesis is anni- 
hilated. 

Doctrines — articles of faith — have emanated from, 
and have been established by papal decree, without 
the decree or aid of Councils. The Immaculate Con- 
ception of the Virgin Mary, was decreed an article of 
faith by Pius IX., on the 10th of December, 1854. 
This question had agitated the Church for many cen- 
turies ; parties had been formed for and against it. 
The Popes themselves had been divided in opinion* 
Several Councils had gravely discussed it, sifted, weigh- 
ed it, but, save the Council of Basle, f could not agree 
— had reached no conclusion. The Council of Trent 
was agitated with it for days. The Cordeliers and 
Jacobins renewed a quarrel that had been fiercely 
burning at times for four centuries. The legates even 
were divided ! No conclusion was reached, and it was 
left to fluctuate for three centuries more. Infallible evi- 
dence, this, of the infallibility of the Council / • 

* John XXII. was very hostile to it ; Sixtus IV. was very favorable. 
T Some Romanists deny that this was a general Council. The 
Church is divided. It was not. 



96 THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

Now, if Councils are infallible, and they only, tlii 
decree is a usurpation and fallible. But the Jesuits 
and Ultramontanists, a large majority of the Church, 
who regard it a triumph of their views, receive it as an 
article of faith, and hence as infallible. And so must 
the Gallicans, or cease to be Eomanists. The Church, 
therefore, is in error, or infallibility does not reside in 
councils-general. 

The argument of Lainez, against this theory, will be 
remembered: "Each bishop is fallible; an assembly 
of bishops therefore is fallible also." The position, that 
"each bishop is fallible," was not denied — has always 
been admitted. The conclusion, though logically drawn, 
that " an assembly of bishops therefore is fallible," was 
denied — and the contrary affirmed. But this denial is 
illogical, it is absurd. It is to affirm of the whole what 
cannot be affirmed of the parts. The particles of a 
cannon ball are iron, the whole of it is gold! If a bishop 
is fallible out of a Council, he must be in it, unless it can 
be proved that in it he is inspired. This, indeed, is 
claimed in indirect terms, at least by some, but re- 
jected by others. But it is an assumption, as we shall 
see, utterly groundless. The Bishop of Bitonto, in his 
sermon at the opening of the Council of Trent, affirmed, 
that "the voice of the Council is God's voice," that 
though the bishops " were even to remain impenitent," 
or "happen what may," he added, "the Holy Ghost 
will employ your mouths in his services." Is not this 
most daring blasphemy ? " Full of the names of blas- 
phemy," is one mark of the beast. " The voice of im- 
penitent " men " God's voice" ! Corrupt men inspired ! 
Did Jehovah ever employ, in a single case, such agents 



DOCTKINES — INFALLIBILITY. 97 

in giving us the Scriptures ? 4 ' Holy men of old spake 
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost;" they were 
the only men inspired to reveal the will of God to man, 
and they were " moved," inspired, individually and 
while alone, or with other Prophets. If this were not 
true ; if the Scriptures rested upon a foundation like 
the bishop's theory of illumination and infallibility ; 
if the Prophets and Apostles had been impenitent men, 
unholy men, I must confess, that, with a mind not pre- 
disposed to, and that never has been, for a moment, 
troubled with skepticism, I could but be an Infidel. 
But, thank God, we have a different, and a sure foun- 
dation for the prophecies and the Gospel of the grace 
of God. The bishop knew, the Council knew, the 
legates knew, that they were not holy, and not inspired.* 
The latter, in their opening address, after exhorting the 
bishops to humiliation and penitence, and to sanctify 
themselves, affirmed, that " without this, in vain they 
had invoked the Holy Ghost." They were right, shall 
we say ? and the bishop wrong. And yet, the voice 
of each was the voice of God ! All were infallible ! 
The exhortation of the legates was in vain. There is 
abundant evidence that the bishops were the same in 
the-Council as out of it ; the same then as before. Had 
they invoked the Holy Ghost in vain ? 

The history of Councils, especially of Trent, decides 
the question of inspiration and infallibility. 

The Councils of Nice, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, re- 
jected tradition as of no authority in matters of doc- 
trine, and held the Scripture to be a sufficient, and the 

* Pallivicini more than admits that they were not holy ; and jet 
claims for such infallibility ! 

5 



98 THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

only rule of faith. The Council of Trent decreed that 
the Bible is not a sufficient rule of faith of itself; and 
that tradition is of equal force and authority. The 
Council of Nice condemned Arius ; another Council 
decreed Arianism ; and then other Councils condemned 
that doctrine ! The Councils of Nice, Chalcedon, and 
Constantinople, held that the Bishop of Rome was not 
the supreme head of the Church. Trent, and many 
other Councils, have held the reverse. In a word, one 
Council has decreed one thing, and another has vetoed 
it, or decreed the contrary. One Council has solemnly 
promulgated a doctrine, and another has solemnly pro- 
nounced it heresy. Now, could all have been inspired ? 
Were all infallible ? Imagine, if you can, that Isaiah 
solemnly announces a doctrine as of the inspiration of 
God ; and Jeremiah condemns it, and teaches quite the 
contrary. Peter preaches one thing and Paul another, 
in irreconcilable conflict with it, and John pronounces 
both heresies. What would the world think ? And 
what would the world think, if a Council of Prophets 
were to decree that justification is by circumcision, and 
a Council of Apostles were to decree that it is hy faith, 
and another Council of Apostles were to decree that it 
is by baptism? And each Council proclaims itself to 
be the oracle of God, that its voice "is God's voice"! 
Why, to say the least of it, all good men would think 
that all could not be right, and that some were prac- 
tising a base imposition, and were guilty of most pre- 
sumptuous blasphemy and impiety. 

Nor is this all. According to Sarpi and Pallivicini, 
both accredited Eoman Catholic historians, the Council 
of Trent was distracted with internal dissensions, and 



DOCTEINES — INFALLIBILITY. 99 

was the scene of wily diplomacy, dark intrigue, and 
angry debates. Hostile opinions struggled for the 
mastery ; drafts of decrees were altered, rewritten, 
changed again, to suit all parties, and finally passed 
under solemn protests. Some very important ques- 
tions, the communion in both kinds to the laity, the 
divine right of bishops, and the Immaculate Conception, 
among others, were left undecided, because the " in- 
fallible" members could not agree. 

The most discordant views were entertained and 
angrily debated on almost every question that came 
before the Council. Every means was used, every 
effort put forth, to harmonize the conflicting elements, 
and to press the members to unanimity in voting, but 
without complete success. Once some of them refused 
to vote; once, some absented themselves; once, one 
bishop, instead of voting an affirmative, said, "I will 
obey," and several times respectable minorities voted 
against the decrees, once as high as thirty-eight, and 
several times they protested ! 

The Pope had a party, the bishops of Italy ; the 
Emperor had a party, the Spanish and German bishops; 
the King of France had a party, the French prelates, 
at the head of whom was the time-serving, treacherous 
Cardinal of Lorraine. And to complete the dark 
shades of the picture, and shut out all idea of infallibil- 
ity, the Pope had a spy to watch the opposite factions, 
and especially the Cardinal of Lorraine, to report to 
him their every movement, and, if possible, every 
thought. They kept a watchful eye upon the Pope 
and his plans, but he triumphed in every contest ; by 
the force of numbers, or by threats, neutralized, 



100 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

overcome all opposition. What can a minority do in 
a Eoman Catholic country? They must submit, 
finally, or at least silently acquiesce, or be burned as 
heretics, or flee the country. 

Bungener draws a graphic picture of these scenes, 
and shows, as clear as language can show, that the 
Council could not have been inspired and infallible, 
was, indeed, anything else. He says : 

" To the difficulty of drawing up any decree on a subject of this 
nature," (sin and grace,) " there was added that of veiling the infinite 
diversity of views that had come to light.* It was not, however, 
proposed, not at least openly, to get rid of the matter by paying no 
attention to these. Many, indeed, would have been delighted at this 
being done. 

" It was Cervini, Cardinal of Santa Croce, the second legate who 
undertook this thorny and bold piece of business. A commission, 
however few the members, would never have brought it to a close ; 
it was necessary that there should be one man to do it, and that a 
person who was not to be lightly trifled with. Yet the cardinal 
showed himself beyond measure kindly and complacent. His sole 
object, his sole thought, was to bring the matter to a close to every- 
body's content, or at least so to contrive that there should be no 
one discontented enough to protest. 

" And he succeeded, but not until the close of three fatiguing 
months and fifty sittings, particular and general. Sarpi asserts that 
he had seen the minutes of countless changes made by the cardinal on 
the first draft ; he shows that the greater number of those modifi- 
cations tended to substitute vagueness for what was positive, obscurity 
for clearness, and for contested points ambiguous expressions, in which 
the most diverse, nay, the most contradictory opinions, as we shall 
see, might equally claim the credit of having made the law. We 
know nothing more deplorably astute than the sixteen chapters of 
that decree. It presents one of those Herculean labors which we 
admire in spite of ourselves, not for their intriDsic worth, but in con- 

* Page 137 Am. edition. The italicising is mine. 



DOCTRINES — INFALLIBILITY. 101 

sideration of the pains, the time, the imperturbable patience of which 
they are the fruit. But here, together with perseverance and art, 
what incredible audacity ! What, pretend that this decree, which 
has cost you three months' hard labor, and in the arrangement Oi 
which you have so often felt your absolute inability to decide with 
precision any of the points to be found in it ; this decree in which 
you have openly made concessions to the opposite opinions, and 
which, only yesterday, you held yourself quite prepared to modify, 
here and there erasing or putting in just as you would do with any 
other piece of writing — this decree, on the arrival of the session, 
has been read with the usual ceremony, and lo ! it is forthwith in- 
violable and sacred/ It will traverse ages without man, angel, 
prophet, no, not the Son of God himself, were he to return to this 
world, having the power to alter a word of it, seeing that would 
infer a disavowal of the Church, to which, according to you, he him- 
self dictated it. Nothing is more curious than the sincerity with 
which, by way of compliment to the Council, this tedious operation 
has been acknowledged, although its very length and laboriousness 
form, self-evidently, so strong an argument against that very Council's 
authority. < It is not to be believed,' says Pallivicini, ' with what 
care, with what subtlety, with what perseverance, every syllable of 
it was weighed and discussed, first in the congregations of the 
divines, who only advised in the matter, and afterwards in that of 
the Fathers who had the definitive voice.' ' In vain,' says Father 
Biner, ' would any one charge the Council with having treated sub- 
jects superficially. * * * * Long deliberations were 
often thought necessary before a single word could be added, taken 
away, or altered * I * * * * "What an imprudent 

apology ! When called upon to speak, said Jesus Christ to his 
apostles, ' take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak.' This 
is inspiration : this is infallibility. Without this we cannot have 
any conception of it. If you required whole hours, whole days to 
decide upon a word, who shall guarantee that by prolonging your 
deliberations a little more you would not at last have decided in 
favor of some other ? You prove to us the matureness of the de- 
crees ; but matureness, quite a human thing, necessarily supposes 
the possibility of a still higher degree of matureness ; the moment 
you make it of any avail in favor of a decree, you acknowledge the 



102 THE GEEAT APOSTASY. 

introduction of an element that is human, variable, fallible. If not, 
then would you have it that God, by the medium of your hand, has 
made those innumerable erasures ! These gropings in all directions 
—shall we say of them that it was the Holy Ghost, who, before 
dictating his last word to you, led you dancing about from error to 
error ! Go, after this, go and declaim against the vagaries of Pagan- 
ism ! Never did Greece, never did Italy, or India, adopt any such 
monstrous improbability. When the Brahmin ordains anything to 
be believed, it is at least in the name of decrees which he himself 
has not made, and whose origin is lost in the night of time ; but to 
command faith, to shut and open heaven, on the strength of a law 
which may be found in its rough draft with blots and erasures, why, 
this is an audacity which has never been approached by the very 
falsest religions." 

Now, to ask if such, a body was inspired, and infal- 
lible, is to insult common sense. If the blessed reveal- 
ments of heaven had rested on a foundation like this, 
would they not long since have been regarded as a stu- 
pendous fraud, and been numbered with the things that 
were ? What, then, is this boasted doctrine of infalli- 
bility? 

And finally, the decrees of Councils, all Eoman 
Catholics know, the advocates of this theory admit, 
are null and void without the sanction of the Pope. 
If he were to reject them, they would not be laws of 
the Church,, or articles of faith, and would be binding 
on no conscience, and as worthless as Chinese paper in 
the sepulchres of "the faithful." What, inspired doc- 
trines, infallible articles of faith, worthless, fallible, 
nothing ! without the sanction of whom ? the Pope ! 

Now, I submit to the candid reader, if these facts 
and arguments do not demonstrate beyond all possibili- 
ty of doubt, that infallibility does not reside in coun- 



DOCTEINES — INFALLIBILITY. 103 

cils-general. Why, this theory is so utterly ground- 
less, and environed with so many overwhelming, anni- 
hilating difficulties, that the wonder is that it ever 
found a lodgment in the Church, or that it should have 
stood for a single day. 

The third theory, and the next in order, is that in- 
fallibility resides in the Pope and a Council of a majority 
of the bishops united. This hypothesis, doubtless, was 
forced upon those who have adopted it, not only to 
avoid the fallacies that form the foundation and the 
superstructure of papal infallibility and the infallibility 
of councils-general, but from the fact that each, to 
some extent, is dependent upon the other ; that Coun- 
cils generally have decreed, and the Popes have sanc- 
tioned. 

This theory is thus stated by one of its advocates : 
" Infallibility is not in the Pope, nor is it in a Coun- 
cil, in the whole of the bishops together, but it is in 
the majority of the bishops united with their head the 
Pope." What a precious piece of dogmatism. " In- 
fallibility is not in the Pope" Nay, verily. But I 
dared not make the assertion till I had planted "my feet 
upon incontestible facts, and fortified my position with 
unanswerable arguments. u JVor is it in a Council, in the 
whole of the bishops together.' 1 Nay, nay! For "each 
bishop is fallible ; an assembly of bishops, therefore, 
is fallible also." u But it is in a majority of bishops 
united with their head the Pope? How much like an 
oracle ! How emphatic ! But where is the proof ? 
Naked assertion, in a question so momentous, will not 
answer. We must have clear demonstration. And 
it would have saved a deal of trouble and would have 



104 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

quieted many doubts that will not down, if these dog- 
matizers had told us by what law of Alchemy, for it is 
not by any moral law, two falliiles make an infallible! 
I cannot comprehend it, I ask for light. 

But this theory rests upon a foundation as ground- 
less as the " baseless fabric of a vision." A Council 
has not been held in seven hundred years, not in a 
thousand, perhaps, composed of a " majority of the 
bishops." The Council of Trent had not as many 
bishops, at most, as Italy could have sent. And Spain, 
Portugal, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland and 
Ireland, could have sent ten times as many. Why, 
the " Emerald Isle," herself, had more bishops than 
this famous Council could boast at its first session. If, 
therefore, infallibility reside "in a majority of the 
bishops united with their head the Pope," the decrees 
of Trent, and half* a dozen other Councils, are falli- 
ble, — the doctrines of mere men. And yet it is well 
known that all the peculiar doctrines of Eome were 
reviewed, remodelled, or modified, and dressed up, — 
loose dogmas were licked into shape, and all received 
the stamp of infallibility by that Council! But "the 
bishops united with their head the Pope," were mis- 
taken, the Pope was mistaken, an essential element to 
make them infallible — "a majority" — was wanting! 
All are fallible. And all they did is fallible. And 
all papal decrees are fallible. Another Council must be 
convoked consisting of an undoubted " majority of the 
bishops united with their head the Pope," and all the 
boasted infallible doctrines of this boasted infallible 
Church must be reconsidered and redecreed, and then, 
what? Why, they would be fallible still. 



DOCTRINES — INFALLIBILITY. 105 

Doctrines solemnly decreed by one Council with the 
Pope at its head, have been changed or repealed by 
other Councils, and the reverse decreed. In one in- 
stance, a provincial Council or synod * condemned the 
decree of a general Council and Pope, and formed its 
own views into an article of faith, which has received 
the sanction of Pojjes and Councils, and become the 
doctrine of the Church of Eome. This theory, there- 
fore, is not only groundless, but facts which lie on the 
very surface of ecclesiastical history, prove that it em- 
bodies the glaring fallacy exposed in the one last re- 
viewed, to wit, That Councils and Popes are in eternal 
antagonism with Councils and Popes. It strikes a 
death-blow at the very " tenet" it was put forth to 
establish. 

The fourth theory, and the last I propose to examine, 
is this: u Infallibility resides in the whole Church. 1 '' 

It is wholly unnecessary to detain the reader with a 
lengthy discussion of this opinion. It is the opinion 
of a few, able though some of them have been. It is 
not the doctrine of the Church of Eome. Besides, facts 
and arguments have just been adduced, abundantly 
demonstrating that the Pope, that councils-general, that 
a majority of the bishops united with their head the 
Pope, are not infallible ; and all this, this theory evi- 
dently admits. How, then, can infallibility reside in 
all of them united with the priests and laity, all of 
whom individually are acknowledged to be fallible ? 

Articles of faith never emanate from, or, are never 
decreed by, the priests and members — the great body 
of the Church, but are decreed by Councils, or the Pope, 

* In the reign of Charlemagne it condemned Arianism. 

5* 



106 THE GEEAT APOSTASY. 

and are always accompanied with anathemas. The 
former, therefore, must receive them, or throw them- 
selves upon the fearful alternative of the sin of schism, 
and expose themselves to the bitter, eternal curse of 
the former, who, in such an extremity, would be sus- 
tained by the laws and practice of their Church for the 
last eight hundred years. To say that their, or the 
Church's reception of, or belief in, doctrines, under such 
circumstances, makes them infallible, is too absurd to 
be thought of seriously. 

The Eoman Catholics in North Carolina, or in these 
United States, are as respectable, as intelligent, and as 
moral, as an equal number under like circumstances 
anywhere throughout the vast domain of that Church. 
Some of them I know and highly respect. They never 
imagine, so far as I have been able to learn, that this 
heavenly attribute resides in them ; that their reception 
of, and belief in, doctrines, stamps them with infalli- 
bility. No. All the doctrines that command their faith 
have been elaborated in Councils, and have received 
the sanction of "his Holiness," or have been decreed 
by papal authority. And they must receive them as 
the infallible doctrines of "Mother Church" with un- 
questioning submission. 

That every Eoman Catholic receives, in the deep re- 
cesses of his own mental nature, every doctrine that 
Councils and Popes decree, though they be clothed with 
anathemas never so many, I do not believe. No, thank 
God, there wells up from the depths of many a manly 
heart freedom's song, and under the light of the Holy 
Ghost, who goes by the priest at the altar, and pours 
his rays upon benighted consciences, these absurd doc- 



DOCTRINES — INFALLIBILITY. 107 

trines are rejected, and enfranchised longing spirits 
reach forth for the pure truth of God. Yes, there may 
be " seven thousand " in the bosom of Eomanism, who, 
amid the gloom, the night of moral death which 
surrounds them, have light in themselves, and never 
"bow the knee to Baal." Their numbers, I trust, are 
increasing. The Immaculate Conception, though backed 
by the thunder of the Vatican, has been rejected by 
some, though at their peril, and has called forth argu- 
ments and protests against it. Now, is it fallible till 
they believe it ? Or, is it only infallible with those 
who do ? What is to be done with this difficulty? 

And finally : not only did the anathemas which ac- 
companied the decrees of the Council of Trent leave 
the priests and laity — the Church — no choice openly 
to receive or reject them, but Pius IV., to crush this 
theory forever, and sweep from the pal£ of Eomanism 
private judgment, solemnly decreed that none should 
pass any opinion upon, nay, not even think his own 
thoughts about them. Despotism reached its culminat- 
ing point, and tyranny waived its dark banner in mid- 
night gloom over the last expiring groan of freedom 
within her realm. Hear him : 

" In virtue of the Apostolic authority, we prohibit all, whether 
ecclesiastics of any rank whatsoever, or laymen, whatever be the 
authority with which they are invested, the former under pain of 
interdiction, the latter under pain of excommunication ; we prohibit 
all, in a word, whosoever they may be, to make upon these decrees 
of the Council any commentaries, glosses, annotations, scholia, or in- 
terpretations whatsoever* 

* This bull was issued January 26, 1564. Quoted by Bungener. 



108 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

Now, "with this " apostolic" (?) law before his eyes 
and thundering in his ears, can any one imagine for a 
single moment that infallibility resides in the whole 
Church ? that her reception of doctrines, or acquies- 
cence in them, constitutes them infallible ? As well 
might he imagine that the unconscious , unresisting paper 
on which the decrees were written, is infallible. 

Where, then, does this " fundamental" doctrine re- 
side ? where are we to look for it ? It is not " in the 
Pope," it is not "in. councils-general," it is not "in 
the majority of the bishops united with their head the 
Pope," it is not " in the whole Church." Where is it 
then? 

It remains now to examine this doctrine in the light 
of Scripture. Does it derive any support from, has it 
any foundation in, the Word of God ? The advocates 
of these respective theories affirm that it has. But why 
should they appeal to the Bible to prove this or any 
other doctrine ? It has no authority, they teach, ex- 
cept what it has derived from the Church, "the de- 
pository and mistress of the faith." This is a settled 
dogma in her creed. Without her sanction, therefore, 
the Bible has no more authority, in matters of faith, 
than Don Quixote. To decree a book or writing to be 
a rule of faith and then prove by it that the Church 
which so decreed is infallible, and therefore had au- 
thority in the premises, is going round the "vicious 
circle" to perfection. But the Bible, with us, with or 
without such decree, is supreme authority in all things 
pertaining to faith, and we gladly go with this ques- 
tion to its infallible teachings. 

The first passage appealed to, and the one on which 



DOCTRINES — INFALLIBILITY. 109 

Eoman Catholics mainly rely to prove this doctrine, 
is, the gracious promise the Saviour made to his dis- 
ciples in his farewell interview, when he clothed them 
with authority to go out and disciple all nations : 

" And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is 
given unto me in heaven and in earth ; go ye, therefore, and teach 
all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the 
Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; teaching them to observe all things 
whatsoever I have commanded you ; and, lo, I am with you always, 
even unto the end of the world"* 

This is, indeed, a very gracious promise, and one to 
which the heart of the true disciple ever turns with 
faith, and joy, and hope. But does it imply, or em- 
brace the promise of inspiration, or simply of succor 
amid persecutions and temptations, and of grace to 
give success to " teaching," and labors of love? 

If the former ; if Christ promised to be with His dis- 
ciples to inspire them in teaching all things whatso- 
ever he had commanded, in all times, then all those 
who thus teach, must be infallible. But if the latter, 
then, though Christ be with them, and though they are 
good men, holy men, they are fallible men. That the 
latter is the correct view of this promise — that it is a 
promise of aid, of grace, of heavenly wisdom, and love 
and success, and not of inspiration, I have not a shadow 
of doubt. 

The promise of the Saviour to his disciples on an- 
other occasion is of the same import, implies fully as 
much, and will aid us in arriving at a correct exegesis 
of this: 

* Matthew xxviii. 18-20 



110 THE GEEAT APOSTASY. 

" I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touch- 
ing anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my 
Father which is in heaven : For where tvjo or three are gathered to- 
gether in my name, there am I in the midst of them." 

If any laymen, women, "two of yon" "shall ask" 
inspiration "it shall be done" — given yon. And 
" where two or three" laymen, (this certainly has ref- 
erence to every member of the Church,) " are gathered 
together, there" Christ is u in the midst of them. 11 Then, 
they are inspired and infallible. And if so, they are a 
lata unto themselves ; they are their own infallible guides, 
and no man, nor Pope, nor Council, dare oppose them, 
without contravening the law of Christ and infallible 
authority. In a word, if the premise, " lo, I am with 
you always," implies inspiration ; then, inspiration is 
implied in the promise, "there am I in the midst of 
them." 

But if this promise implies inspiration, and therefore 
infallibility, the Church of Eome has been rejected by 
the Saviour, for he is not with her in that sense. For 
there is not a prelate, or priest, or layman, in her pale, 
who can tell whether he is inspired, or where this in- 
spiration resides. Or, can one be inspired, be under 
the illumination, the "moving" of the Holy Ghost, and 
not know it ? If so, (but is is impossible,) it will not 
make him infallible or anything else. He that does 
not know that he is inspired, that "the Spirit of the 
Lord" is upon him, is as if he were not inspired, and 
is but a fallible man after all. 

Again : Popes and Councils have been against Popes 
and Councils, as I have shown by undeniable facts ; the 
Church has erred, and therefore could not have been 



DOCTRINES — INFALLIBILITY. Ill 

inspired. Hence, according to Pome's interpretation, 
Christ has not been with her. She signs her own 
death-warrant. 

Finally, if I were to admit that inspiration is implied 
in this promise, yet as it is conditional, the condition 
must be complied with to the very letter, or it is made 
of none effect. "Go ye * * * teach all nations * * * 
baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, 
and of the Holy Ghost ; * * * teaching them to observe all 
things whatsoever I HAVE COMMANDED YOU ; and lo, I 
am ivith you" &c. What he " had commanded" they 
were to teach ; nothing more, nothing less. That was 
the condition on which the promise rested. In teach- 
ing what he "had commanded," therefore, and that 
only, he would be with them. In the performance of 
that duty, a duty specific, clear — that could not be mis- 
understood — the promise, all that is implied in it, was 
sure. But if they should fail, be recreant to their 
trust, and teach new doctrines — " another Gospel" — "doc- 
trines of men" the promise would be forfeited; Christ 
would not be with them. It is scarcely necessary to 
remark, in support of this view, that the Jews again 
and again made void the law ; made the promises of 
God, promises as sure as this, of none effect, by their 
traditions, and wicked departure from Him. And if 
a priest, or minister, may now teach anything, any 
wicked doctrine, and practice it, though decreed by 
Pope or Council, the Pope and Council being corrupt, 
and yet claim and realize the presence of Christ, then 
the immutable One has changed, and a lie becomes the 
truth of God, and Christ and Belial have coalesced. 

Has, then, the Church of Eome taught, does she now 



112 THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

teach, the doctrines the Saviour taught, the pure Gos- 
pel? Has she complied to the very letter with the 
condition of this very gracious promise, teaching the 
nations to "observe" "whatsoever" He "had com- 
manded" ? Nay, verily. She does not pretend that 
she has. Council after Council has decreed new doc- 
trines. In the last seven hundred and fifty years, 
"auricular confession, priestly absolution, indulgences, 
transubstantiation, purgatory," &c, &c, have all been 
decreed doctrines of the Church. And then, to throw 
away the last anchor that kept her from drifting out 
to sea, and to demonstrate that she has fully "departed 
from the faith," and will teach the " commandments of 
men" for the Gospel of Christ, the Council of Trent 
decreed that His commands, in themselves, are not a 
sufficient rule of faith, that tradition is of equal author- 
ity ! And but last year Pius IX. decreed the "Im- 
maculate Conception" to be an article of faith ! And 
yet it is claimed that Christ is with this Church ! That 
He is with the " Holy Father" Pio Nino ! Well might 
the apostle exclaim, whose prophetic eye gazed with 
sorrow upon the working of " the mystery of iniquity" 
in the Church, and her "departure from the faith," 
" For this cause God shall send them strong delusion, 
that they should believe a lie ; that they all might be 
damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in 
unrighteousness 1 '' ! 

This promise, then ; in no sense, sustains the assumed 
doctrine of infallibility. 

The next passage brought forward in support of this 
doctrine, is in the Gospel recorded by St. John, xvi. ch. 
7-13. 



DOCTRINES — INFALLIBILITY. 113 

" If I depart, I will send Him, the Comforter, unto you. And 
when He is come, He will reprove the world of sin," &c. " He 
will guide you into all truth." 

There are two things contained in this promise ; en- 
lightening, convicting grace with which the world was 
to be and is blessed, and inspiration, which the Apostles 
only were to enjoy. " He shall guide you" &c. Was 
the latter to descend down through the Church in all 
ages ? Certainly not. The Church, as we have seen, 
was to teach what Christ "had commanded." There 
was no need, therefore, of inspiration "in all days;" 
for the doctrines to be taught were revealed, were 
before her eyes. This the Saviour himself taught in 
another form: "The Comforter, which is the Holy 
Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, He 
shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your 
remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you" The 
Apostles were to be inspired to "remember" " all things 
whatsoever he had said" and "all things whatsoever 
he had commanded" that they might teach and write 
them in a book, that the Church in all ages might 
know and obey them. Beyond this it was unnecessary 
for inspiration to go ; and beyond this it did not go, 
except prophetically. The Apostle fully sustains this 
exposition: "Though we, or any angel from heaven, 
preach any other Gospel unto you, than that which we 
HAVE preached unto you, let him be accursed." 

No Church, therefore, no man, or body of men, since 
the close of the Apocalyptic vision, have enjoyed the 
revealing inspiration of the Holy Ghost. And hence, 
each and all Churches, and all men, have been fallible. 
It were hardly necessary to add ; that this conclusion 



114 THE GEE AT APOSTASY. 

is sustained by all history, ecclesiastical and politi- 
cal. 

But one other passage, worthy of any notice, is ap- 
pealed to in support of this dogma. This is the re- 
markable language of our Saviour to Peter : 

" And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this 
rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail 
against it." 

I do not now propose to examine this text critically, 
— this I shall do under the head of the spiritual and 
temporal supremacy of the Pope. One thing is appa- 
rent, however, that this declaration contains no promise 
of inspiration. Perpetual inspiration, indeed, is not 
necessary to the perpetuity of the Church : her foun- 
dation having been laid upon the Eock ; and the sure 
word of prophecy, and the ever-blessed Gospel of the 
grace of God, having been given her as a rule of faith, 
and an unerring, all-sufficient rule of faith, reposing 
upon that Eock, and implicitly trusting in and fully 
obeying this that her Founder and Lord has taught, 
" The gates of hell shall not prevail against her." But 
should she leave this foundation, and build upon the 
sand, and " make void the law" by her tradition, like 
the doomed Church of Laodicea, she would be rejected 
and cast forth as the synagogue of Satan. The Jewish 
Church sinned and fell ; and hence this is not an open 
question. She left the Lord, " the fountain of living 
water," and " hewed out" to herself "broken cisterns 
that could hold no water ;" and He who had planted 
her a living vine, and had blessed and refreshed her 
with the river whose "streams make glad the city of 
God," overwhelmed her with judgments, suffered her 



DOCTBHSTES — INFALLIBILITY. 115 

to be led into captivity, and her priests and young men 
to be slain. And, let it never be forgotten, that, in her 
fall and departure from God, and when rejected of 
Him, she had the same priesthood, the same ritual, the 
same sacrificial victims, and the same smoking altars ; 
the same ark of the covenant, the same sacred memo- 
rials of past divine favor and glorious triumphs, the 
same burning incense and splendid temple ; and the 
same gracious promises, now hers no more, lived and 
gleamed amid her buried, forgotten law. And she 
imagined, with all these, that the divine favor was sure, 
and that the gates of hell could never prevail against 
her. Where, then, was the Church ? The prophet and 
" seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal," 
though scattered and unknown to each other, without 
a visible head, or priest, or altar, were the Church of 
God ! This passage, then, does not prove the infalli- 
bility of the Church of Eome. Nor does it even prove 
that she cannot "fall away." It simply proves that 
Christ will always have witnesses on the earth, who, 
reposing upon Him, the Rock, and "observing all 
things whatsoever" He "has commanded," "the gates 
of hell shall never prevail against " them. They are 
the Church, and she, who glories in the name, having 
become corrupt, is "Antichrist." No warrant, there- 
fore, is found in Scripture for this doctrine. 

Now, I have pursued this dogma through all its 
windings, have analyzed all its assumed protean forms, 
and have examined all its boasted foundations, and at 
every turn and in every position it has been demon- 
strated to be an insidious, unresting, most pestilential 
error, groundless and absurd. This "fundamental 



116 THE GEE AT APOSTASY. 

tenet," therefore, is but a foundation of eddying sand: 
this " stronghold " of Koine, a castle infinitely more dim 
and shadowy than transcendentalism, without corner- 
stone, or walls, without buttress or tower. "And this," 
not being "solid," the plain consequence is, that every 
Christian is not " bound to submit his conscience to her 
decisions^" nor "to receive her interpretation of Scrip- 
ture;" and this her "stronghold" being "destroyed," 
all "her pretensions fall at once to the ground," and 
the "Scriptures" may not only be, but are, "pleaded 
for as the only rule of faith," and "the independency 
of conscience " established and preserved intact. And 
God forbid that the day should ever curse this fair land 
of ours, when this assumed infallible Church of Koine 
shall take away the one, or lord it over the other ! 

Auricular Confession. 

Auricular Confession was first decreed an article of 
faith of the Church of Eome, by the fourth Council of 
Lateran under Innocent HI., in 1215. Up to that time 
it was not a doctrine in her creed, though she boasts 
that she never changes. It had been a floating dogma 
for several hundred years, received and practiced by 
some, but utterly rejected by others; and during the 
greater part of that time, by a large majority of the 
Church. It was certainly not, therefore, of apostolic 
teaching. It was re-examined and redecreed by the 
Council of Trent. The following is a correct transla- 
tion of the decree of the Trent Fathers : 

" If any one shall deny that sacramental confession was instituted 
or is by divine right necessary to salvation, or shall say that the 



DOCTBINES — CONFESSION. 117 

mode of secretly confessing to a priest only is not according to Christ's 
institutions and command, and that it is a human invention, let him 
be accursed. 

" If any shall say that in the sacrament of penance for the remis- 
sion of sins, it is not of divine right necessary to confess all and each 
of such mortal sins which by due and diligent self-examination can 
be remembered, even secret sins, and those, too, that are against the 
last two commandments of the decalogue, together with their cir- 
cumstances that might alter the character of the sin ; or that shall 
say that they who study to confess all their sins wish to leave noth- 
ing to God's mercy to pardon ; or lastly, that it is unfit to confess 
venial sins, let him be accursed."* 

Auricular Confession, then, in the creed of this 
Church, is absolutely essential to absolution, and abso- 
lution to salvation. Hence, there is no way to heaven 
but through the confessional. And hence, it is the 
imperative duty of every Eoman Catholic and all men 
to go to the confessional and confess all of his or her 
sins, in thought, word, act, at short intervals. Even 
" secret sins" all sins, of imagination, of desire, of act, 
whether done in the blaze of midday, or gloom of mid- 
night, — all must be told to the priest. The delicate 
young lady must go alone into the room of the priest — 
a room, every avenue of which is carefully closed, and 
unbosom her heart to him. Everything must be told, 
or there is no absolution, no salvation. Yes, every- 
thing ! And the priest can detain any one as long in 
the confessional as he deems proper, and ask any and 
all questions he may choose ; and nothing revealed, 
said, done there, must be told out of the confessional 
upon the pain of eternal damnation. What an illimit- 
able source of power ! What a fearful means of cor- 
ruption ! 

* Ousley's Translation. 



118 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

Now, I most distinctly " deny" that " secretly con- 
fessing secret sins, or any kind of sins to a priest, was 
instituted, or is by divine right necessary to salvation," 
that it "is according to Christ's institution and com- 
mand ;" and affirm " that it is a human invention" and 
" unfit" for Christian men or women. 

Here then, again, we are at issue. The umpire to 
decide the question, and to which both appeal — the 
" institution and command of Christ" — is at hand. I 
gladly take this and all questions of faith and morals, 
to that, the only rule of faith. 

One would imagine, from the emphatic tone and 
language of this decree, that Jesus Christ most dis- 
tinctly "instituted and unequivocally commanded" 
"secret confession" of all our "sins" "to a priest." 
The Soman Catechism is as emphatic, and teaches the 
lambs of the flock that — " He has commanded the 
practice as necessary to salvation." Where, then, is 
this command ? Where this institution ? It is not, as 
will soon appear, in the Gospel, nor in the inspired 
epistles of the Apostles. There is not a single com- 
mand touching this question, or duty, in the New Tes- 
tament. Nor did the doctors of Trent, nor has the 
Catechism, nor Peter Dens, nor Du Pin, nor Drs. Chal- 
loner and Miiner, brought forward a single passage, or 
text which will support this position. The first, and 
almost the only passage on which they rely, is the 
language of St. James : 

" Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another that 
ye may be healed."* 

* James v. 16. 



DOCTRINES — CONFESSION. 119 

Now, the Apostle does not mean by the word "fault" 
sin — gin against God, but impropriety, offence towards a 
brother. To him and not to a priest, must we confess 
it, and make the amende honorable. This view is sus- 
tained by the teaching of the Saviour as recorded by 
St. Matthew: "If thy brother shall trespass against 
thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone. 
But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or 
two more. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it 
unto the Church."* By the terms "trespass," and 
" fault," sin cannot be meant ; but even if this were so, 
if the Saviour meant sin, He teaches beyond all cavil 
that it must be confessed to the one against whom it 
was committed ; and then, to one or two more ; then, to 
the Church. Confession of sins, therefore, secretly, to a 
" priest only," is not taught by Christ, nor by St. James, 
in these passages. But not only do these passages not 
sustain this doctrine, but prove, if they prove anything, 
that the priest must confess his faults to the one against 
whom he has trespassed, and, in certain cases, to the 
Church. "Confess your faults one to another ;" priests 
and people. But if any have sinned against God, to 
Him and Him only it must be confessed. 

There is no other text brought forward to sustain 
this doctrine except in connection with absolution, 
which I shall notice when I come to examine that 
dogma. Where, then, is the command to confess sin to 
a priest ? When and where did Christ institute con- 
fession? The record, the umpire to which Rome has 
appealed, is silent. Silent ! on a subject absolutely 
essential to salvation ! This is a grave, not to say 

* Matthew xviii. 15-17. 



120 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

impious, implication. In everything necessary to sal- 
vation the Saviour has revealed himself fully, clearly. 
In the great commission to the Apostles he specifically 
lays down their duties ; but says not one word 
about this — does not even intimate that it was His 
will that they should become confessors, that the 
people must confess their sins to them. And Paul, in 
enumerating the duties and prerogatives of an Apostle, 
bishop, deacon, does not even allude to this ; wholly 
ignores it. And yet the same Apostle declares, that 
with the Scripture in his hand, "the man of God may 
be perfect" " thoroughly furnished unto all good works" 
Confession was not an article of faith in the early 
Church ; the Church who knew her mission and duty, 
who drew her life blood, and her inspiration, as it were, 
from the clear, pure teachings and holy example of 
the Apostles. Her ministers were not confessors, nor 
did the holy martyrs confess. Chrysostom unequivo- 
cally condemns all secret confessions of sins to priests, 
or to any one. "Hast thou sinned?" he asked, "thou 
needest no witness ; confess thy sins to God, and he 
will forgive thee." And Basil, Hilary, Augustine, 
with many others, taught that confession must be made 
only to God. JSTor did it become, as we have seen, an 
article of faith, till, in 1215, it was decreed by the in- 
fallible Church of Eome. Now, if it be of "divine 
institution and command," and essential to salvation, 
why did not the infallible Church decree it centuries 
before ? Why did she permit, or wickedly allow so 
many millions to live in ignorance of their duty, and 
die without salvation ? Why did Paul, and Peter, and 
John, Polycarp, Chrysostom, and Augustine, never 



DOCTRINES— ABSOLUTION. 121 

teach and practice it ? but teach the Church, over which 
the Holy Ghost had made them overseers, and the 
world, to confess their sins not to priests, but to God, 
and Him only ? Why ? But one answer can be given, 
M It is a human invention." And the decree and prac- 
tice of auricular confession demonstrate that the 
Church of Eome has " fallen away," and gives "heed 
to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils." 



Priestly Absolution. 

Intimately connected with auricular confession, and, 

I may say, kindred to it, is the doctrine of priestly ab- 
solution. Indeed, confession and absolution may be 
said to be integral parts of the sacrament of penance. 
And yet they are not this sacrament ; it consists in the 
formula, or words used by the priest in absolving — 

II Ego te ahsolvo 11 — " I absolve thee. 11 So the Councils 
of Florence and Trent decreed. In the latter Council 
different opinions were entertained by the doctors and 
prelates in reference to this very point. Some con- 
tended that the sacrament consists in the penitence and 
confession of the sinner ; others contended that it is in 
the absolution conferred, or given by the priests ; others, 
that it lies in the union of the two ; and others, that it 
is in the words used by the priest in absolving. The last 
opinion prevailed. A sacrament, me believe, is an out- 
ward, visible sign or seal, of an inward work of grace, or 
of a covenant of grace. The sacrament of baptism con- 
sists in the application of water to a proper subject ; and 
of the Lord's Supper, of consecrated bread and wine re- 

6 



122 THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

ceived by devout faith. But the Trent Fathers decreed 
that the sacrament of penance consists in the words of 
the priest, " I absolve thee" ! And they decreed this in 
the very face of the third canon — their own work — 
which anathematizes whosoever shall deny that Jesus 
Christ established the sacrament of penance by the 
words : " Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted 
unto them ; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are re- 
tained" ! But that infallible Council could bring 
together antipodes, make water and oil at a word, 
coalesce, and bring light out of darkness. But after all, 
their bungling inconsistencies stand out prominently. 
However, confession and absolution, if they are not 
integral parts of the sacrament of penance, as some 
divines of Borne even now teach, they are indispensa- 
ble prerequisites of the solemn formula of the priest 
in which it consists. 

Penance, then, has been exalted to the dignity of a 
sacrament, and that sacrament consists in the words of 
the priest, "I absolve thee"! Absolution, then, par- 
don of sins by a priest, is a prominent, settled article 
of faith in the creed of Borne. Absolution by him is 
indispensably necessary to pardon and salvation. Hence 
there is no way to God and to heaven but by and 
through the priest. The priest is man's visible saviour. 
This conclusion may be gainsayed by some, and denied 
by others, in certain quarters, but it is an inevitable se- 
quence from these premises — nay, it is the doctrine of 
Home. Why, in the decree of the Council of Trent, 
right before our eyes, auricular confession and priestly 
absolution are affirmed to be of divine institution and 
command, and the very words the priest is to use, and 



DOCTKINES — ABSOLUTION. 123 

by winch the penitent is pardoned, are laid down — 
put into his mouth, which can mean nothing else — 
"Ego te absolvo;" and anathema is thundered against 
all who shall deny that he has divine authority in the 
premises, and that the penitent is absolved. The 
Council, if possible, went a step further. In the four- 
teenth session the following was passed, and now forms 
a part of the infallible doctrine of this Church : 

" Even priests, who are held in mortal sin, do exercise, by virtue 
of the Holy Ghost, conferred in ordination, as Christ's ministers, 
the function o remitting sins ; and that they think ill who contend 
that there is not this power in wicked priests. And though the 
priest's absolution is the dispensation of another's benefit : never- 
theless, it is not a naked ministry alone, either of announcing the 
Gospel, or of declaring that sins are forgiven ; but after the likeness 
of a judicial act, in which by himself, as by a judge, sentence is 



Thomas Aquinas, Peter Dens, Drs. Challoner and 
Milner, and a host of others, state and defend this as 
the .doctrine of their Church. The Eev. Dr. Murray, 
who was born of Roman Catholic parents, baptized in 
the Roman Catholic Church, and confirmed by a bishop, 
says, that when a youth he regularly confessed his sins 
to a priest, and that the priest absolved him. The priest 
assured him that he w r as pardoned, and he then be- 
lieved it, and came out of the confessional satisfied. 
He had a lighter heart, he assures us, and was ready 
for amusement and sin again. But it is not necessary 
to cite decrees of Councils, and quote authors, to 
prove that the Church of Rome holds this doctrine ; it 
is written on every page of her history for the last six 



124 THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

hundred years, and enters into her daily practice. In 
a word, she teaches that in the sacrament of penance 
the sinner only can be pardoned ; and that sacrament 
consists in the absolving words of the priest. Without 
the priest, therefore, there can be no pardon, no re- 
conciliation with God, no salvation. 

The priest, then, deny it as you may, pious or cor- 
rupt, a believer or a sceptic, is man's visible saviour. 
Without him, heaven is shut, hell is open. And the 
divinely awakened, agonizing, inquiring penitent, can- 
not find Him of whom Moses in the law, and the 
prophets did write ; nor can that God who has de- 
clared, that " in every nation, he who feareth Him shall 
be accepted with Him" — accept and pardon the return- 
ing prodigal. No ! the visible saviour must hear his 
confession and absolve him. " One cannot enter into 
a place that is shut," says the Roman Catechism, 
" unless by means of him who has the keys ; no more 
can one enter into heaven, when he has shut the door 
against himself by a mortal sin, UNLESS THE PKIEST, 
TO WHOM JESUS CHRIST HAS COMMITTED THE KEYS, 

shall open the gate to him." The priest has the 
keys of heaven ! he shuts ! he opens ! and God, with- 
out him, cannot shut, cannot open! "The man of 
sin," "the son of perdition," was to "sit in the temple 
of God, showing himself that he is God." 

Now, is this doctrine, as affirmed by Eome, taught 
in the Bible ? Is this high prerogative, this awful 
power, of divine "institution and command"? And 
surely a doctrine, as vital as the atonement itself, 
would be clearly, fully revealed ; revealed on every 
page in juxtaposition with the love of God, the sacri- 



DOCTRINES — ABSOLUTION. 125 

ficial death of Jesus, and faith ; the ' immortal trinity 
of doctrines, in the union of which there is salvation, 
and can but be salvation ; in the separation of which, 
though man have all things else, there is death, and can 
but be death. But this is not the case. Faith, the 
atonement, the love of God, glow and burn on almost 
every page of the New Testament, and, like living 
beacons, pour out their light upon a wicked, benighted 
world, guiding the penitent to Mount Calvary and to 
heaven ; but absolution of sins by a priest — where is 
it revealed? There are a few isolated passages that 
seem to favor this doctrine ; but when they are analyzed 
in the light of others, when examined in connection 
with the design and scope of the plan of salvation, 
and especially in connection with the prescribed duties 
of the Apostles, the powers with which Jesus clothed 
them, and with their practice, they do not sustain it. 
And this is the only proper, safe rule by which to ar- 
rive at the meaning, the doctrine of any passage, in 
any author, or book ; especially texts of Scripture. 

Blackstone lays down this as the only safe rule in ex- 
pounding law ; and Blair teaches that this rule must 
be observed to arrive correctly at the views and doc- 
trines of all authors. To eschew this rule ; to take an 
isolated passage and force out of it a doctrine in con- 
flict with its context, and the design and object of the 
writer — any doctrine may be proved from any author, 
and the Bible may be made to ignore the being of 
God himself! 

To this rule I shall adhere in this investigation. 

The language of the Saviour to his disciples, re- 
corded by St. John, is the first text brought forward 



126 THE GEEAT APOSTASY. 

by Eomanists to prove the doctrine of priestly absolu- 
tion: "As my Father hath sent me, even so send I 
you." "How, or to do what work," they ask, " did 
the Father send the Son?" " To forgive sins" they 
reply. Certainly ; this I admit in the fullest accepta- 
tion of the terms. But we do not know this except 
by the context, or His teaching elsewhere. " If, then," 
they continue, " the Father sent the Son to forgive sins, 
and the Son sent His disciples as the Father sent Him ; 
therefore, the Son sent the disciples to forgive sins"* 
But this conclusion is a gratuitous assumption ; a mis- 
erable fallacy. This is so apparent that an argument 
to show it, is almost a work of supererogation. The 
Father sent the Son to die to redeem sinners. As the 
Father sent the Son, so the Son sent His disciples ; 
therefore the Son sent the disciples to die to redeem 
sinners. This conclusion is as natural and as logical 
as the other. I insist, therefore, that all Roman Cath- 
olic' priests be crucified to redeem sinners! If they 
claim authority from this passage to forgive sins, for 
the same reason they must submit to the baptism of 
blood with which the Saviour was baptized. But a 
mere tyro in logic, even the unlettered man of com- 
mon sense, would reject both as wholly gratuitous. 
What, then, did the Saviour mean by this language ? 
To do what work did He send the disciples? Only 
what is contained in, and clearly expressed by the great 
commission, " Go ye into all the world, and preach the 
Gospel to every creature : He that believeth and is 

* I heard the late Bishop Eeynolda use this very argument. After- 
wards, in a friendly conversation with a priest, I pointed out the 
fallacy, when he roundly affirmed that there was no fallacy in it. 



DOCTRINES — ABSOLUTION. 127 

baptized shall be saved; but lie that believeth not 
shall be damned."* 

How simple ! how clear this language ! " Go, preach" 
* * * "baptize." "He that believeth shall be saved; 
he that believeth not shall be damned." Not one word 
about confession ; not one word about priestly absolu- 
tion. And, with this commission in his hands — with 
such credentials, what minister could ever imagine 
that he is clothed with the awful prerogative of absolv- 
ing penitent sinners ? 

The next passage brought forward to prove this doc- 
trine, and on which Eoman Catholics folly rely, is the 
23d verse of the 20th chapter of thetGospel recorded by 
St. John : "Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted 
unto them ; and w r hose soever sins ye retain, they are 
retained." "This language," it is said, "decides the 
question." "By these words," it is affirmed, "the 
Saviour instituted the sacrament of penance, and clothed 
the disciples with power to remit and retain sins." But 
did he clothe them with power "to remit and retain 
sins," by a word, in their own names, or even in the 
name of God ? or simply to preach the Gospel, w^hich, 
when received and believed in, would remit sins, or 
when rejected, would retain them? If the former^ 
the Church of Eome is right — controversy is at an end; 
but if the latter, then the sacrament of penance has no 
foundation here, and the priest — I reject that term as 
without meaning and improper in the Christian Church 
— the minister has no higher prerogative, can do no 
more than simply state the terms on which God will 
absolve the penitent and save him. The minister, as the 

* Mark xvi. 15,16. 



128 THE GEE AT APOSTASY. 

ambassador of Jesus Christ, preaches His Gospel, which 
is "a savor of life unto life, or of death unto death ;" 
states the terms on which God will pardon, and hence 
it is said he remits or retains sins. This exposition is 
sustained by the whole tenor of Scripture, by the 
teachings of Jesus Christ, and the practice and teach- 
ing of the Apostles. 

" 0, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them 
gods of gold. Yet now, if Thou wilt forgive their sins; and if not, 
blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou has written."* 

This was the language of Moses when the children 
of Israel sinned in making and worshipping the golden 
calf. Moses, inspired as he was, the governor and 
leader of Israel's host, the channel of innumerable favors 
and blessings to them ; at the waving of whose wand 
the first-born of Egypt grew pale in death, and the 
waters of the Eed Sea opened and retired as instinct 
with life : Moses, who had power to prevail with God 
— a type of Christ — could not forgive sins. 

" If you forsake the Lord * * * He will not forgive your trans- 
gressions nor your sins."t 

In the fervent prayer offered up by Solomon in the 
dedicatory service of the Temple, we have a number of 
expressions which fully demonstrate that he and the 
priests around him, aiding and acquiescing, did not 
imagine that they, or any one on earth, could forgive 
sins, but that forgiveness belongeth only unto God. 

•Em xxKii. 31, 32. See, also, xxxiv. 7. f Joshua xxiv. 19. 



DOCTRINES — ABSOLUTION. 129 

" What prayer or supplication soever be made by any man, or 
by all thy people Israel, who shall know every man the plague of 
his own heart, and spread forth his hands towards this house : Then 
hear thou in heaven thy dwelling-place, and forgive, and do, and 
give to every man according to his ways, whose heart thou knowest, 
for Thou, even Thou only Tcnowest the hearts of all the children of 
men."* 

Solomon, and the high, priest by his side, and the 
priests around him, knew nothing of auricular confes- 
sion or priestly absolution. 

Amid the deep penitence of the Psalmist, or in his 
ecstatic joy, he plead with, and looked only to God for 
forgiveness, or praised him as his . only deliverer and 
Saviour. He went to no earthly priest ; was absolved 
by none : 

" Have mercy upon me, God, according to thy loving kindness ; 
according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my 
trangressions. * * * Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out 
all mine iniquities. "t "For thou, Lord, art good and ready to 
forgive, "t 

" I waited patiently for the Lord ; and he inclined unto me, and 
heard my cry. He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out 
of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock and established my 
goings. And He hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise 
unto our God ; many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the 
Lord."? 

I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions" \\ 

The Jews, the priests and the doctors of the law, did 
not believe, in the days of the sojourn of the Saviour 
upon earth, that any being could forgive sins, but God 
only. Hence, when He, who had healed the sick, and 

* 1 Kiflgs viii. 38. f Psalm li. X Psalm lxxxiv. 

§ Psalm xl. |j Isaiah xliii. 25. 

6* 



130 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

raised the dead, and cast out devils, said, " Son, thy 
sins be forgiven thee," they were astonished, and asked, 
" Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies ? Who 
van. forgive sins but God only? " * They were not aston- 
ished at His miracles ; Moses and the Prophets had, by 
the power of God, wrought similar ones ; but when He 
assumed a prerogative belonging only unto God, and 
which had never been exercised by Priest or Prophet, 
they were amazed, and charged Him with blasphemy. 

"Be ye kind one to another, forgiving one another, 
even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you." f 
"Forgiving one another" "trespass," "faults," impro- 
prieties, as, or because, " God for Christ's sake hath for- 
given you" your sins — sins against Him, which man 
cannot, which He only can forgive. 

These and innumerable other passages of the same 
import in the revealments of Heaven, show that the 
pardon of " transgression and sin" belongeth only unto 
God; that He has never delegated this power to 
Prophet, Priest, or Apostle ; and hence, to construe the 
text under review in the Roman Catholic sense, is to do 
violence to the harmony of Scriptures. It is to prove, 
by an isolated passage, a doctrine in conflict with 
their whole scope and tenor. The Saviour must 
have meant, therefore, that to the disciples was com- 
mitted the Gospel of reconciliation — that as His am- 
bassadors they would publish the means and state the 
terms upon which He would "remit" or "retain" 
ins. He speaks of what Tie himself will do, through 
the preaching of the Gospel by his ministers, as if done 
by them. 

*Markii., 5. t Eph. iv.,32. 



DOCTRINES — ABSOLUTION. 131 

This view is sustained by the whole tenor of the 
Saviour's teaching. In the four Gospels there is not a 
single word or passage, except the one under review, and 
the one of the Keys, that can, by any interpretation that 
does not do utter violence to all rules of exegesis, be made 
to sustain, even by implication, the doctrine of priestly 
absolution. The Saviour reveals himself fully. He 
communicates to his disciples their duties and respon- 
sibilities. He specifically states the work to do which 
he sends them, to the " lost sheep of the house of Israel," 
or "into all the world." They are to "preach" to 
"baptize" to "heal the sick;" but to hear "secret con- 
fession," and by a word "remit" sins — where is it stat- 
ed ? Where shall we find it ? This silence in a matter 
so momentous, is strangely unaccountable; nay, it 
demonstrates that in the plan of salvation absolution 
by a priest has no part. In the duties, responsibilities, 
authority, prerogatives of the Gospel ministry, as laid 
down and taught by the great Head of the Church, 
with the exception of the contested text we are exam- 
ining and that of the keys, this most sacred duty, this 
most awful responsibility, has no place. Matthew, 
Mark and Luke, give us the language of the Saviour 
when He commissioned the disciples to go to the Jews, 
and then to all the world, and there is no intimation 
that they were clothed with this power. The Saviour 
must be understood, therefore, as speaking of the simple 
preaching of the Gospel, and not of any power which 
He had given them, to have in themselves, of remitting 
sins "as by a judicial act." 

The practice of the Apostles fully sustains this view. 
The Apostles, all must admit, understood the nature and 



132 THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

extent of their commission ; the powers with which they 
were clothed. They received it from the lips of the 
Saviour. They were inspired. They went out and 
preached, the Holy Ghost bearing them witness with 
" signs and wonders," and a great multitude was gath- 
ered into the fold of Christ. God approved their labors. 
Their practice, then, decides, or ought to decide, the 
question — shows clearly and beyond all peradventure 
what the Saviour meant by this misconstrued and much- 
abused language : " Whose soever sins ye remit they are 
remitted," &c. What, then, was their practice ? Did 
they ever forgive sins ? or did they simply preach the 
means of pardon — Jesus Christ and him crucified, and 
point the trembling penitent, without " secret" auricu- 
lar or any " confession" to them, to Him as a sin-par- 
doning God ? Let us see. 

On the day of Pentecost, Peter, the first Pope (?) and 
head of the Eoman Catholic Church, papists affirm, 
Peter, when the multitude cried out, " Men and breth- 
ren, what shall we do?" said, " Eepent and be baptized 
every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the 
remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the 
Holy Ghost." (Acts ii. 38.) What a fine opportunity 
for Peter to have said, "I absolve thee'''' ! He dared not 
do it. He knew that he possessed no such prerogative ; 
that he had been clothed with no such power. A day 
or two after this, " Peter and John went up together 
into the Temple." A lame man was healed and the 
" people ran together." Peter proclaimed to them " the 
Prince of life," whom they had "killed," as their Sa- 
viour. "Eepent ye, therefore," he cried, " and be con- 
verted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the 



DOCTBINES — ABSOLUTION. 133 

times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the 
Lord" And the sins of the multitude were "remitted" 
or "retained," not by priestly absolution, but through 
the Gospel ; faith in the Gospel, preached by the Apos- 
tles, " when refreshing came from the presence of the 
Lord." 

In the sermon preached by Peter, to Cornelius and 
his company, we have this language : "To him" (to 
Jesus) " give all the prophets witness, that through his 
name whosoever helieveth in him shall receive the remission 
of sins" " While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy 
Ghost fell on all them which heard the word"* No 
priestly absolution here ; no solemn announcement, 
" I absolve thee" Their sins were remitted, through 
faith in Jesus, while Peter spake. This Peter knew, 
for they spake " with tongues, and magnified God." 
And he asked, " can any man forbid water, that 
these should be baptized, who have received the Holy 
Ghost as well as we." Their sins, then, were not only 
not " remitted," not blotted out, by Peter, but before 
they were baptized, and therefore by faith, and faith 
only. 

When the Philippian jailer fell down convicted 
and trembling before Paul and Silas, and said, " Sirs, 
what must I do to be saved?" what was their reply? 
We absolve you; we "remit" all your sins: Jesus 
Christ, whom we serve, and whose power hath thrown 
open these prison doors and broken off these stocks, 
hath given us power to "remit" and " retain " sins ? 
Nay, verily. " They said, believe on the Lord Jesus 
Christ, and thou shalt be saved." (Acts xvi. 31.) Now, 

* Acts x. 43, 44. 



134 THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

is not this fully satisfactory and decisive of the ques- 
tion ? Here were inspired Apostles, who knew their 
duty and the power given to them by the Head of the 
Church, who dared not " remit" sins. But our modern 
Apostles know more than they, understand the com- 
mission better ; and, that the sinner be not troubled to 
go to Jesus, they absolve him for money ! 

The writings of the Apostles in exposition of the 
Gospel, and of their Apostolic functions, sustain this 
view — that to them was simply committed the Gospel 
which they were to preach, and which when believed in 
or rejected, would " remit" or "retain" sins. 

The Apostle Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, dis- 
cusses, at length, the doctrine of remission of sins, or 
justification, and reaches the conclusion that it is 
through the blood of Christ by faith, and faith only 
He first " proves both Jews and Gentiles, that they 
are all under sin ;" (ch. iii. 9,) and that " by the 
deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified." (Y. 
20.) He then declares that we are "justified freely by" 
" grace, through the redemption that is in Christ 
Jesus ;" " whom God hath set forth to be a propitia- 
tion, through faith in his blood, to declare his righteous- 
ness for the remission of sins that are past." (Vs. 24, 
25.) " Where is boasting then ?" he asks. " It is ex- 
cluded. By what law ? Of works ?" By priestly ab- 
solution ? " ISTay ; but by the lata of faith ." " Where- 
fore we conclude that man is justified" pardoned " BY 
FAITH without the deeds of the law ;" (vs. 27-28,) with- 
out priestly absolution ! In the 4th chapter he takes up 
the case, or justification of Abraham, to illustrate and 
corroborate his position. " Abraham believed God, 



DOCTEINES — ABSOLUTION. 185 

and it was counted unto him for righteousness." (V. 
3.) " Now to him that worketh is the reward not reck- 
oned of grace, but of debt" The Roman Catholic doc- 
trine of penance, or remission, is a work throughout ; 
and hence the salvation it procures is not of "grace, 
but of debt" and therefore no salvation at all ! " There- 
fore," adds the Apostle, " it is of faith," " that it might 
be of grace" (V. 16.) Having fully demonstrated that 
remission is not by priestly absolution, but by faith 
only — and argument was never more complete and 
satisfactory — he breaks out in the commencement of 
the fifth chapter, in the sweet, triumphant language, 
" Therefore, being JUSTIFIED BY FAITH, we have peace 
with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ" !* Oh, that 
the Eoman Catholic penitent could hear this, under- 
stand this, believe this ! 

In his letter to the Galatians, the Apostle declares 
that " the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify 
the heathen through faith, preached before the Gospel 
unto Abraham^" (ch. iii. v. 8 ;) and that " the law was 
our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we 
might he justified by faith " (V. 24.) And Peter, and 
James and John, teach the same doctrine. All the 
Apostles declare that to them was committed a " dis- 
pensation of the grace of God to preach remission of 
sins through faith in Jesus" Not one ever claimed the 
power to " remit" or "retain" sins by an act, or a 
word ; not one ever remitted sins by a word, or pro- 
nounced the sinner as absolved in any language, or 
form, or phrase whatever. They taught the sinner 
the way of salvation, and pointed the trembling peni- 

* The words "justify/' "pardon/' "remit," mean the same. 



136 THE GREAT APOSTASY 

tent to Jesus and said, believe on Him u and thou shalt 
be saved." And lie wlio believed lived without 
priestly absolution. 

Now the conclusion is irresistible, that the Apostles 
had no power to " remit" and " retain" sins as claimed 
by Eoman Catholic priests. The tenor of Scripture, 
the scope and spirit of the Saviour's teaching, the prac- 
tice of the Apostles, and their own exposition of their 
functions, demonstrate this beyond all doubt. The 
doctrine of priestly absolution, then, as decreed by the 
Council of Trent and practiced by the Church of 
Eome, is a " departure from the faith," and a " revela- 
tion of the Man of Sin." In assuming it, she has, be- 
yond all question, assumed a prerogative which God 
has never delegated to man nor Church ; and has thus 
" exalted herself above God." But this doctrine is not 
only false, it is blasphemous, and fearfully pernicious. 
It has led astray, from God and heaven, untold mil- 
lions into the dark mazes of error, and caused them to 
rest their hopes of salvation upon a foundation of sand ; 
and has finally opened beneath their feet an abyss of 
woe, at the sight of which " immortality would turn 
pale"! 

The passage of the Keys, on which Eome builds her 
doctrine of shutting and opening heaven, is of the same 
import of the one just under review. " I will give unto 
thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven : and whatso- 
ever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, 
and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loos- 
ed in heaven." The Gospel faithfully preached is the 
key of the kingdom of heaven. It " looses" when be- 
lieved in and obeyed; it "binds" when rejected. The 



DOCTRINES — ABSOLUTION. 137 

minister lias " the keys of the kingdom," and power to 
" bind and loose," in this sense simply as a preacher. 
Beyond this he has no power. And if he prove recre- 
ant and preach not, God will save through other in- 
strumentalities. He, short-sighted, erring, prejudiced 
mortal, cannot, as he pleases, by a word, open and shut 
heaven. No, no ! God has never given his ambassa- 
dors such power. " To the angel" — the minister — 
'* of the Church in Philadelphia write ; these things 
saith He that is holy, He that is true, He that hath the 
key of David, He that openeth, and no man shutteth, and 
shutteth, and no man openethP* All the benedictions, 
then, of priests, per se, never " loosed" a single soul, 
and all their anathemas never "bound" one. Eome 
may bless or curse, and it is all the same. He that believeth 
in the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved ; but he that be- 
lieveth not shall be damned! 

An extract from Bungener, in his usual happy, clear 
style, will show the reader — though I regard the argu- 
ment as complete — that the priest in absolving, in 
opening heaven, as he pretends, exalts himself above 
God, in that he binds God to do what he has pro- 
nounced : or else he has really done nothing but pro- 
nounce deceptious words which are a blasphemous 
mockery : 

" I absolve thee," he, the priest, has said. Is this declaration abso- 
lute, or is it conditional ? 

" If absolute, if at the instant those words passed from his mouth, 
they were necessarily ratified in heaven — I say to myself, I may 
have deceived him with false semblances of repentance, yet those 

* Revelation iii. 7. See, also, Isaiah xxii. 22. 



138 THE GBEAT APOSTASY. 

words have been not the less pronounced, and God must have rati- 
fied a pardon which has been stolen. 

" If conditional, if God confirms the absolution only in the case 
of His seeing in me sentiments worthy of grace — this is reasonable ; 
but what becomes of the authority of the priest ? He has not 
really absolved me ; he has neither loosed nor bound. All is but 
a mere promise, that if I fulfil the necessary conditions God will ab- 
solve me. May not the first that comes tell me as much ? May not 
I myself say as much to any sinner who may consult me on the state 
of his soul ? 

" In the last case, consequently, the priest is only an adviser. He 
does not absolve you. You are thus compelled, if you hold to leav« 
ing him anything to do at all, to return to the other alternative, 
that is to say, to leave him too much, far too much, enormously too 
much ; you are compelled to admit that once absolved at the confes- 
sional, the greatest villain stands absolved before God. 

" Eead the decree of the Council ; is there any indication there 
that the absolution pronounced by the priest may possibly not be 
ratified in heaven? No. To say that, in any way, would be to 
overturn the whole structure. The penitent is, no doubt, told be- 
forehand that he ought not to be silent on any sin, and that he is 
held bound to perform the penance imposed ; but here we find pre- 
cisely what authorizes him to believe, that after a sincere confession, 
and the exact performance of the penance imposed, the absolution 
is necessarily valid. Take hold now of that idea, analyze it, and 
see to what you are led. A pious woman was asked one day what 
penalty had been imposed at the confessional, whence she had just 
returned. Five Paters and five Ave Marias, she replied. And if you 
should not say them ? My sins will not be forgiven. And if you 
say them ill, without attention, with weariness and disgust ? No 
more will they be forgiven in that case. Therefore you have not 
received absolution ? Certainly ; but I must work for it. The 
priest has not then given you anything ? He gave me absolution. 
Nay, for you still have your sins ; and you will continue to have 
them until your penance be performed, and you will keep them, too, 
unless you perform it in a proper way. Again we ask, what has 
the priest given you ? Either a definitive absolution which you are 
conscious that you have not received, or a mere promise of absolu- 



DOCTRINES — ABSOLUTION. 139 

tion, which any other man might have given yon. And the poor 
woman was confonnded at seeing no middle point betwixt this re- 
ducing of the priest to the level of mere believers, and that exhor- 
bitant power with which her conscience forbade her to believe him 
to be invested." 

" They," the Komanists, " will not go so far as to tell you directly ? 
that once absolved by the priest, it matters not how, they believe 
themselves pure from all sin ; but though they say it not, though, 
strictly speaking, they may not positively think it, that fatal error 
is not the less the natural, the direct, and, it must be said, the per- 
fectly logical consequence of the system that has been imposed on 
them. What is confession in those countries into which a little 
true Christianity, and a little good sense, have not by some means 
or other penetrated ? Did paganism, with its impure priests and 
cheap expiations, ever present anything so unheard of as the bri- 
gand who goes from the confessional to his place of ambuscade, 
tasting all the tranquillity of virtue between the crime he has com- 
mitted, and that which he meditates committing ? And why should 
he not be tranquil ? Of his past crimes he is absolved ; only let 
him take care not to be killed before he has murmured a few prayers 
imposed on him as penance. Of his future crimes he knows he can 
be acquitted at the same cost. He never dreams of repentance ; 
still less of amendment of life. Shall we be challenged to cite a 
book, or a priest, that has taught this ? True, these are not things 
that are written or said. But we, in our turn, defy any one to 
produce a book, or a priest, able enough to refute that brigand so 
as to deprive him of his frightful security, without a deep breach 
on the very doctrine of confession, the right of absolution, and all 
their consequences. Everything, to the very title of sacrament, 
bestowed on penance, concurs to produce these deplorable results. 
When the priest has said, ' I baptize thee/ the infant is baptized. 
When he has said in the mass, ' This is my body,' the wafer is 
changed, infallibly changed into flesh. When he has said, ' I ab- 
solve thee,' how can it be, if penance be a sacrament, if these words 
be pronounced with the same authority as the others, how can it be 
that there should not be absolution ? To refute the brigand who 
deems himself absolved, well and duly absolved, you must begin by 
telling him that absolution in itself signifies nothing" 



140 THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

This doctrine was unknown to the Apostolic Church. 
In the first century there is nothing said about it. The 
atonement, faith, regeneration, baptism, &c, are themes 
of earnest discussion, and doctrines of high commenda- 
tion. But confession, absolution — there is concerning 
them a profound silence. Who can account for this ? 
Did the Church not know her duty? or was she un- 
faithful to her Lord, and suffered the holy martyrs to 
die with mortal sins unremitted, and go down the 
1 ' sides of the pit' ' ? And when the silence was broken — 
when "the mystery of iniquity" began to work more 
and more — it was by Chrysostom, Basil, Hilary, Augus- 
tine, &c, against this doctrine. And not till after the 
Man of Sin exalted himself into the Temple of God, 
was it practiced to any extent ; and it was not an 
article of faith till the fourth Council of Lateran de- 
creed it in the thirteenth century. The formula used 
by the few who professed to absolve, from the seventh 
century to the Council of Lateran, was the more 
modest, but still very objectionable phrase, " God ab- 
solves thee? But then the mystery of iniquity, in this, 
culminated, and the form was changed to, "I absolve 
thee? 

The difficulties, then, that environ this. doctrine and 
its history, demonstrate no less than the Word of 
God, that Eome's interpretation of the passage, " Whose 
soever sins ye remit," &c, is erroneous ; and that the one 
I have given is the true one. And this view is sustained, 
right in the face of the Council of Trent, by Bossuet 
and Pope Innocent III., incidentally it may be, but 
that is all the better. "It is Jesus Christ," says Bos 
suet, a it is that invisible pontiff who absolves the peni- 



DOCTRINES — ABSOLUTION. 141 

tent inwardly, whilst the priest exercises the outward 
ministry." There are two acts, then, and one may 
exist without the other. The priest's act is one, and 
not that of the invisible pontiff . Is, then, the priest's 
absolution such absolutely before, and with, and in 
the sight of God? No, surely; unless the absolu- 
tion of the invisible pontiff is united with, and con- 
trolled by it. But does the visible priest compel the 
invisible to absolve when he pronounces ? None, per- 
haps, will be so bold as nakedly to affirm this. The 
priest, then, cannot " remit" sins; the invisible pontiff 
only can do this. Jesus Christ, therefore, did not in- 
stitute the sacrament of penance by the words, " Whose 
soever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them," &c. 
Nor has the priest any more authority than simply to 
preach the Gospel, and God through the Gospel re- 
ceived by faith, " remits," or when rejected, ''retains 
sins." 

"As the Church," says Innocent III., "may some- 
times err with respect to persons, it may happen that 
such an one who shall have been loosed in the eyes of 
the Church, may be bound before God, and that he 
whom the Church shall have bound, may be loosed 
when he shall appear before Him who knoweth all 
things." I have no doubt of this. Who has? This 
yields us everything we ask. " Whatsoever is bound 
on earth," then, by a priest "is not bound in heaven." 
And Eome's boasted interpretation of this text is erro- 
neous ; and all the doctrines built upon it are depart- 
ures from the faith ; and all the consequences flowing 
out from it, are streams of the mystery of iniquity. To 
the minister has been committed a dispensation of the 



142 THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

Gospel of the grace of God ; lie is to preach ; here his 
power begins and terminates — God " binds" or " looses," 
" remits" or retains" sins through his preaching when 
faithfully performed. He is not a God then ; nor a 
semi-God, but the servant of all. His motto, therefore, 
should be, " "We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus 
the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake." 
And in all his ministrations, he should, must point the 
sinner to Him and say, " Believe on the Lord Jesus 
Christ and thou shalt be saved." And he who believes 
on Him, though the priest were never seen or heard, 
" shall not perish but have everlasting life." 



Indulgences. 

Closely connected with the doctrine of penance, in 
its nature, is the dogma of Indulgences. The Church 
of Eome claims the power to remit sins and the punish- 
ment due for sins, for a specified time, or even forever ; 
and this is called an indulgence. For a stipulated sum, 
more or less, the indulgence is limited or plenary. That 
Eome claims this power, or that this is an article of 
faith in her creed, has been questioned by some, and 
denied by others, in this country ; but they might as 
well deny that the Pope is the head of the Eoman 
Catholic Church, or that he has spiritual sovereignty 
over his flock. The Council of Trent — supreme au- 
thority with papists — says: " Christ has granted to his 
Church the power of granting indulgences ;" " and that 
the use of them is very salutary to the faithful, and 
must be retained in the Church." According to Sarpi, 



DOCTRINES — INDULGENCES. 143 

there were a few in that Council opposed to it, but with 
overwhelming numbers they were voted down, and 
this doctrine "took its place definitely among the 
Eoman dogmas." 

Indulgences, in the Eoman Catholic sense and use 
of them, were invented in the eleventh century by 
Urban II. They were offered as a sure passport to 
heaven, to all who would take up arms and enter the 
crusades to the Holy Land. Then, to those who hired 
a soldier for that purpose. Victor III. granted indul- 
gences to all who would fight against the Saracens. 
Alexander III. granted them, and an eternal reward, 
to all who would fight against the Albigenses— - 
those true Christians, and the true Church. Calixtus 
II., Eugenius, Clement III., all granted indulgences. 
"John XXII. granted an indulgence for a million of 
years for devoutly saying three prayers written in the 
chapel of the Holy Cross in Eome" ! Pius VII., in a 
bull, sent to Dr. Moylan, Bishop of Cork, in 1809, uses 
this language: "By divine providence, Pope, grants 
unto each and to every one of the faithful of Christ, 
who, after assisting at least eight times at the holy exer- 
cise of the mission, (in the new Cathedral of Cork,) 
shall confess his or her sins with true contrition and 
approach unto the holy communion — shall visit the said 
Cathedral Chapel, and there offer up to God for some 
time pious and fervent prayers for the propagation of 
the holy Catholic faith, and to our intention, a plenary 
indulgence.'''' Dr. Moylan, in his pastoral letter concern- 
ing this dispensation from the Pope, says: "Behold, 
the treasures of God's grace are now open to you ! The 
ministers of Jesus Christ, invested with His authority, 



144 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

and animated by His Spirit, expect you with a holy 
impatience, ready to ease you of that heavy burden of sin 
under which, you have so long labored.* Were your 
sins as red as scarlet, by the grace of the absolution and 
application of this plenary indulgence, your souls shall 
become white as snow J 1 * * * " To gain this plenary 
indulgence, it is necessary to be truly penitent, to make 
a good confession" to a priest, of course. " All priests 
approved of by us to hear confessions can, during the 
above time, absolve all such persons as present them- 
selves with due dispositions at confession, in order to 
obtain this plenary indulgence from all sins and cen- 
sures." Now, all this was in this glorious nineteenth 
century. 

It is a well-known fact, that the reformation in Ger- 
many commenced in opposition to the sale of indul- 
gences. Pope Leo X. authorized and sent out John 
Tetzel, a bold, impudent priest, to sell indulgences. 
Tetzel went forth and offered these a treasures of God's 
grace" to "the faithful." The letters-patent, given by 
him, communicating this grace, granting the indul- 
gences and absolution, are full and explicit. Here is 
one: 

" The Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on thee, N" — N" — , and ab- 
solve thee by the merits of His most holy sufferings ! And /, in 
virtue of the apostolic power committed to me, absolve thee from all 
ecclesiastical censures, judgments, and penalties, that thou mayest 
have merited ; and further, from all excesses, sins and crimes, that 
thou mayest have committed, however great and enormous they may 
be, and of whatever hind — even though they should be reserved to 
our Holy Father, the Pope, and to the Apostolic See. I efface all the 
stains of weakness, and all traces of the shame that thou mayest have 

* Of what utility, then, had their absolutions been ? 



DOCTRINES — INDULGENCES. 145 

drawn upon thyself by such actions. I remit the pains thou wouldst 
have had to endure in purgatory. I receive thee again to the sacra- 
ments of the Church. I hereby re-incorporate thee in the communion 
of the Saints, and restore thee to the innocence and purity of thy 
baptism ; so that, at the moment of death, the gate of the place of 
torment shall be shut against thee, and the gate of the paradise of 
joy shall be opened unto thee. And if thou shouldst live long, this 
grace continueth unchangeable, till the time of thy end.* 

" In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Ghost. Amen. 

" The brother John Tetzel, commissary, hath signed this with his 
own hand, "f 

What a tissue of presumption and blasphemy ! "Well 
might the heart of Martin Luther swell with horror 
and pious indignation at this unholy traffic. He lifted 
his voice in thunder-tones against it, as a daring as- 
sumption of Jehovah's prerogatives, and a fearfully 
demoralizing, damning sin. At those fearless trumpet- 
blasts the eyes of the blind were opened, and the ears 
of the deaf unstopped. The Eeformation began ; and 
soon the minds of men were liberated from the dark- 
ness of ages and priestly bondage, and stood forth " re- 
generated and disenthralled." 

Dr. Johnson, in his travels in Italy, says : 

" That religion cannot offer very formidable checks to immorality, 
or even crime, which hangs up ' Plenary Indulgence 1 on every 
chapel-door. He who can easily clear the board of his conscience 
on Sunday, has surely a strong temptation to begin chalking up a 
fresh score on Monday or Tuesday." 

In Mexico, Central and South America, Portugal, 
Spain, Italy, Austria, ever and anon, the traveller in 

* Wherefore, then, administer extreme unction ? t D'Aubigne 

7 



146 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

his journeyings sees over the doors of Churches, even 
at this day, this advertisement, " Indulgences for 

SALE HERE." 

In the "Christian's Guide to Heaven; a Manual for 
Catholics" published some years ago at "Baltimore^ 
with the approbation of the Most Reverend Archbishop 
of Baltimore" we have the following statement and 
directions :* 

" Plenaky Indulgences geanted to the Faithful throughout 
these States, at the following times : 

" I. On Christmas day, and the twelve days following, to the day 
of Epiphany, inclusively. 

" II. In the first week in Lent, beginning with the first Sunday,, 
and ending with the second Sunday, inclusively. 

" III. At Easter, i. e., from Palm Sunday, inclusively, to Low 
Sunday, inclusively. 

" IV. From Whitsunday to the end of the octave of Corpus 
Christi. 

"V. On the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul, and during the 
octave. 

" YI. On the feast of the assumption of the blessed Yirgin Mary 
and during the octave. 

" YII. On the Sunday preceding the Feast of St. Michael, and 
during the octave, unless St. Michael fall on a Sunday, in which 
case it begins on that day. 

" VIII. On All Saints' day, and during the octave. 

" IX. Once every month, on any day which each of the faithful 
shall choose, as best suits himself. 

" The conditions of the first, third, sixth, and seventh, are: 

" 1 To confess their sins with a sincere repentance, to a priest ap- 
proved by the bishop. 

" 2. Devoutly and worthily to receive the holy communion. 

"3. To visit some chapel, or oratory, where mass is celebrated, 
and there offer up their prayers, for the peace and welfare of God's 
Church." 

* Page 21. 



DOCTRINES — INDULGENCES. 147 

The fourth, and last condition is similar. Then we 
have the following: 

"Note. — It is not required, for gaining these indulgences, that 
these works of mercy, corporal or spiritual, or this assisting at cate- 
chisms or sermons, be done on the same day with the communion ; 
but that persons be then in a disposition, or readiness of mind, to 
do these things, or some of them at least, when opportunity shall 
offer." 

Pope Clement XL, in 1718, issued a brief, called the 
"Bull of the Holy Crusade, to the kingdoms of Spain, 
and the isles to them pertaining, in favor of all 
them that should help and serve the King, Philip V., 
in the war, and expense of it, which he doth make 
against the enemies of our Catholic faith, with great 
indulgences and pardons. 11 In this "Bull," "his holiness 
doth grant a free and full indulgence and pardon of all 
their sins, 11 " to all the true Christians," Roman Catholics, 
"who shall go to fight against the Turks, and other 
infidels" — Protestants. On certain days, "the first 
Sunday in Lent " among others, a "free and full in- 
dulgence" is vouchsafed to each and all who will 
comply with the conditions on which the proffered 
boon is tendered. " Third Sunday in Lent, free and full 
indulgence;" and, on "this day, everybody" who has 
purchased a bull (Clement's) and obeyed its injunc- 
tions, " takes one soul out of purgatory 11 ! In fine, "to 
all those who would take the bull," and pay for it, of 
course, "is granted the same indulgences and pardons, 
■ every day, which are granted at Rome. 11 Convenient, 
very. "The Holy Father," Clement XL, was very 
gracious, certainly. But his "merchandise" cost him 
nothing, and so great and good a favor, — a work so 



148 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

glorious in its results, — " a free and full indulgence 
and pardon of all sins,' 7 and the "taking" of so many- 
precious "souls out of purgatory" — he ought to have 
repeated times without number. How cruel not to 
have done so! "Pardon," deliverance "from purga- 
tory," and heaven offered, ok, infallibly secured, by the 
purchase and obedience of the brief of a Pope ! 

Oh, Eome, tkou kast, indeed, ckanged tke truth of 
God into a lie ! Tke simple, pure Gospel, which offers 
salvation by faith in Jesus Christ, thou hast changed 
into bulls of Popes, and the blasphemous absolution of 
priests. Nay, the Pope is God on earth, exalted above 
Jehovah in the heavens, and his brief, the Gospel. 

In a book called " The Tax of the Sacred Roman 
Chancery"* we kave tke precise sums to be paid for 
an indulgence ; for tke commission of eack particular 
sin, or for the pardon of tke sin and remission of tke 
puniskment. Tke vender of tkese "holy wares," or 
the Father confessor, however, may vary the price 
with tke noble and tke wealtky. Of kim to whom 
much is given, much is required. I will give but a 
few cases. I will not blur these pages with the recital 
of tke filthy, corrupt, unholy crimes, and the price of 
their commission, spread out on the leaves of that work. 

For "perjury, forgery, and lying, two dollars." 
" Bobbery, three dollars." "Bating meat in Lent, two 
dollars seventy-five cents." " A nun for frequent forni- 
cation, in or out of the nunnery, five dollars." " Marry- 
ing on a day forbidden, ten dollars." " Absolution of 
all sins together, twelve dollars." "All incests, rapes, 
adultery, and fornication, committed by a priest, with 

* Published by Anthony Egane. a Franciscan friar, in 1673. 






DOCTRINES — INDULGENCES. 149 

his relations, nuns, married women, virgins, and his 
concubines, with the joint pardon of all his whores at 
the same time, ten dollars." 

Dr. Milner in his "End of Controversy," says: 

"The essential guilt and eternal punishment of sin can only 
be expiated by the precious merits of our Redeemer, Christ ; but 
a certain temporal punishment God reserves for the penitent him- 
self to endure, lest the easiness of his pardon should make him care- 
less about falling back into sin !* Hence, satisfaction for his tem- 
poral punishment has been instituted by Christ, as a part of the 
sacrament of penance ; and this very satisfaction is only efficacious 
through Christ. As the promise of the Lord to his Apostles — St. 
Peter in particular — and their successors, is unlimited : ' Whatsoever 
ye shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven ;' so the Church 
believes and teaches, that her jurisdiction extends to this satisfaction, 
so as to be able to remit it wholly or partially, in certain circum- 
stances, by what is called an indulgence. St. Paul exercised this 
power in behalf of the incestuous man (2 Cor. xi. 10) ; and the 
Church has claimed and exercised the same power ever since the 
time of the Apostles down to the present. But there must be a just 
cause for the exercise of it ; namely, the greater good of the peni- 
tent, or of the faithful, or of Christendom in general, and there must 
be a certain proportion between the punishment remitted and the 
good work performed! Hence, no one can ever be sure that he has 
gained the entire benefit of the indulgence, though he has performed 
all the conditions appointed for this end ! And it is the received 
doctrine of the Church, that an indulgence, when truly gained, is 
not barely a relaxation of the canonical penance enjoined by the 
Church, but also an actual remission, by God himself of the whole, 
or of part of the temporal punishment due to it in his sight ! This 
explanation of an indulgence, conformably to the doctrine of theologians, 
the decrees of Popes, and the definitions of Councils, ought to silence 
the objections and suppress the sarcasms of Protestants on this 
head." 

* Just the reverse is true. The ease with which he gains an indul- 
gence keeps him sinning. 



150 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

Dr. Milner's great work was written as a special de- 
fence of Eoman Catholicism, and for the eye of Pro- 
testants. This extract, therefore, contains the most 
reasonable and defensible view which can be presented, 
of this doctrine. It is a studied effort to explain away 
the glaring errors that are inherent in it, to keep out 
of view the fetid stream of corruptions which flows out 
from it, and to impress the mind that it is of Scriptural 
origin and apostolic practice. But he signally fails. 
It is not of divine origin ; nor was it ever practiced in 
the primitive Church. He cites but one single text to 
sustain him, and that no more proves his assumption 
than that the Koran is of God. But Mr. Ousley's 
reply is so much to the point, such a clear refutation? 
that I give it in preference to anything I might offer : 

" That this is the real doctrine of his Council of his infallible 
Church to this hour, none will dispute ; but that in the whole of it 
there is a tittle of truth, and that he could believe there is, who of 
the least information will attempt to affirm ? He assumes as di- 
vine truths the following most monstrous propositions: 1. That 
when God acquits a penitent of one — the eternal guilt, He still holds 
him under another guilt — the temporal. 2. That he himself must 
endure this latter, and must atone for it here, in the way his clergy 
shall appoint, or in purgatory. 3. That this mode of satisfaction 
was instituted by Christ. 4. That to his Church He has commit- 
ted, by an unlimited promise, fall power to manage this whole busi- 
ness. 5. That such is her jurisdiction, she can remit the eternal 
guilt in the sacrament of penance, and the temporal guilt — the whole 
of it, or a part ! — by the same, but especially by an indulgence, as 
did St. Paul, and as the Church has ever since always done ! or 
lastly, by masses ; these two last extending to purgatory also ! 6. 
Because there must be a just proportion between the punishment 
remitted and the good work, ?'. e., the penance enjoined by the pas- 
tor ; no one can ever be sure, let him perform it ever so well, that 



DOCTKINES — INDULGENCES. 151 

he has gained the entire of the remission he aimed at. Hence, of 
course, his doubts and alarm must ever continue, and his Church 
must devise other new plans for his relief, viz., more penance, more 
indulgences, a jubilee, extreme unction, and, at the end, purgatory, 
with more indulgences still, masses, and what not, to extricate the 
poor soul ! !" 

That the Church of Eome, then, claims the power 
to grant indulgences is a settled question. No intelli- 
gent person will doubt it ; no honest Eomanist will 
deny it. 

Now, if penance be a sacrament, and sacraments con- 
fer grace, ex opere operato, or, from their own intrinsic 
virtue, or of themselves — so that he who has received 
the sacrament, whatever it be, must necessarily and 
without fail, whatever may have been his mental and 
moral feelings, have received the grace also — as the 
Council of Trent decreed and "the faithful" believe, — 
wherefore the necessity of indulgences ? If absolution 
by the priest has remitted sin, the bull of the Pope, 
or letters-patent, granting indulgences, are a cheat. Or, 
if a plenary indulgence is necessary to pardon sin, and 
saves from purgatory, absolution is an impious, ridicu- 
lous farce. 

This doctrine has no foundation in Scripture. There 
is not a single passage that even seems to favor it. It 
is emphatically a doctrine of men. Not even does 
tradition, which Eome claims to be of equal authority 
with the inspired Word, sustain it. Like the sacrament 
of penance and the Immaculate Conception, it has 
been evolved as a necessity of the corruptions of the 
Man of Sin ; and, has been decreed a dogma essential 
to pardon and redemption from purgatory, to exalt 



152 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

into divinities the Pope, and prelates, and priests of 
Kome, and bring the people still more in unquestion- 
ing submission and absolute dependence at their feet. 
Without absolution, and indulgences, and transubstan- 
tiation, or mass, what can a poor Eoman Catholic do ? 
There is no pardon ; no salvation. And these cannot 
be realized without the Pope and the priest. What, 
then, are the Pope and the priest but divinities before 
whom the people must bow, and by, and through 
whom, enter into life eternal ? Every mandate of the 
Pope, of the priest, must be obeyed, every wish grati- 
fied, or the channels of grace are turned away, anathema 
peals its fearful thunders in the darkened heavens, and 
hell yawns voraciously for its hopeless prey. Beyond 
all question, proclaim to the contrary as you may, the 
Hierarchy of Eome is the most unmitigated, relentless, 
cruel, absolute despotism in the world. A despotism 
as far from the Christianity taught by Jesus Christ and 
his Apostles ; a Christianity which fully recognizes in- 
dividual, personal rights, the prerogatives of conscience 
and man's dependence only on God; as far from this, 
as the darkness of midnight is from the light of noon- 
day. But more of this in another place. 

Many able Eoman Catholic authors admit that there- 
is no warrant for this doctrine in the Scriptures ; and 
that it was never practiced in the Apostolic Church. 
"Father Biel says, and the admission has the more force 
in it because he was an uncompromising advocate of 
the papacy : "we must confess, that before the time of 
Gregory, the use of indulgences was very little if at 
all known, but now the practice of them is grown fre- 
quent;" he adds as if fearful the honest confession 



DOCTRINES— INDULGENCES. 153 

would affect "the practice of them": "the Church, 
without doubt, hath the spirit of Christ her spouse, 
and therefore erreth not." What a fatal fallacy ; a fallacy, 
as Ave have seen, which underlies the mighty super- 
structure of Borne ; an empty, airy nothing, a fathom- 
less abyss into which papists plunge when they imagine 
that they are building on an immovable rock. Here 
is the great parent error of all the heresies and corrup- 
tions of the Church of Borne. In all that she decrees, 
in all that she believes, in all that she does, she cannot 
depart from the faith, cannot err. Whatever doctrine 
or practice, therefore, will strengthen her hands and 
throw a deeper pall of moral night over the people 
and forge their chains with stronger links, though at 
open war with the Scriptures and even tradition, it is 
decreed and they must believe and obey, or the ever- 
ready thunders of anathema will scathe, and burn, and 
kill. 

" If we could have any certainty concerning the origin 
of indulgences, it would help us much in the disquisi- 
tion of the truth of purgatory ; but we have not by 
writing any authority either of the Holy Scriptures, 
or ancient doctors, Greek or Latin, who afford us the 
least knowledge thereof."* St. Anthony, Archbishop 
of Florence, says — and what a saint says ought to be 
true — " Touching indulgences, we have nothing ex- 
pressly cited in Holy Scripture." Cardinal Fisher 
says, "So long as there was no care about purgatory, 
nobody looked for indulgences, for from it proceeds all 
regard for indulgences. When purgatory was hut so 
lately known to the Universal Church or received, it is not 

* Cardinal Cajetan. London edition, 1637. 

7* 



154 THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

to be wondered at, that in the first time of the Church there 
were no indulgences."* Cardinal Cajetan, in Ms tract 
on Indulgences, commenting on these words of St. 
Peter, "There shall be false teachers among yon, who 
through covetousness shall with feigned words make 
merchandise of yon," says : " Such are these mercenary 
preachers, who, for money, abuse the devotion of 
Christian people, daring to preach from rash ignorance, 
that those who pay a carlin or a ducat for what they 
call a plenary indulgence, are in the same condition as 
if they had just been baptized, and that they even de- 
liver a soul from purgatory. Such declarations are 
monstrous, and it is only making traffic of the people; 
the Christian religion also condemns it." 

Yes, verily, "the Christian religion," in genius and 
spirit, in teaching and practice, does " condemn it " and 
cast it away as an unholy thing; as one of the " un- 
clean spirits, like a frog which came out of the mouth 
of the beast." 

Finally, Alphonso de Castro, in a work on this sub- 
ject, admits that "the doctrine of indulgences was 
quite recent " (this was in the sixteenth century) " in 
the Church of Eome." "It is the same with this be- 
lief," he adds, " as with several others — such as trail 
substantiation and purgatory ; the ancients did not 
know them, it is true, but what is there astonishing 
in that, since God daily gives new light to the world ?" 
The same old error of illumination and infallibility. 
Were it not for this monstrous sophism ? which ever 
haunts, and ever blinds "the faithful," these new doc- 
trines, indulgences, transubstantiation, purgatory, &c, 

* Lutheran Refutation quoted by Ousley. 



DOCTRINES — TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 155 

would be regarded with astonishment, and be rejected 
as departures from the faith and " doctrines of seducing 
spirits and of devils." 

Now, can evidence be more clear and convincing — 
can moral reasoning reach a conclusion more logical 
and impregnable — that the Church of Eome, in the 
doctrine of indulgences, has " fallen away;' 7 and is 
the Man of Sin who came up in the prophetic vision 
of the Apostle, " opposing and exalting himself above 
God" ? And yet, in all this, she says she " cannot err." 
This " fundamental tenet," which only could have orig- 
inated with "the Son of Perdition," so fills her vision, 
and illumines with its false glare her heart and her 
pathway, that she can but see and hold the truth in 
unrighteousness. Being u incapable of erring," she can 
never reform — she can fall away, but return never ; 
and therefore, this foul, damning dogma will form a 
black chapter in her creed till " the Lord shall con- 
sume" her "with the spirit of his mouth, and shall 
destroy" her "with the brightness of his coming." 

Transuhstantiation . 

Transubstantiazion, or the conversion of the bread and 
wine, used for the holy Eucharist, into the body and 
blood of Christ, by the prayer of a priest, is another fun- 
damental doctrine of the Church of Eome. The bread 
aud wine, she teaches, and most constantly, firmly 
holds, are not only consecrated to the service of God, 
set apart from a common to a holy use, as held by 
Protestants, but are changed, by the prayer of conse- 
cration, "into the body and blood, soul and divinity 



156 THE GEEAT APOSTASY. 

of Christ." So that Christ is not present figuratively, 
spiritually, but really, personally — the bread, under the 
magic prayer of the priest, has ceased to be bread and is 
His body ; the wine has ceased to be wine and is His blood. 
This is a most prominent, distinctive doctrine of Koman 
Catholics, and their boast and glory. They cling to 
no dogma, perhaps, with a firmer faith. And it is 
among the last eradicated from the mind of one seeking 
the truth, and who is being liberated from the super- 
stition and intolerable burden of oppressive, useless 
ceremonies of this fallen Church. 

As this doctrine should be clearly understood, I will 
lay before the reader the decree of the Council of Trent. 
The Trent Fathers say : 

" Since Christ our Kedeemer, has said, that that was truly his 
own body which he offered under the appearance of bread ; it has 
therefore been always believed in the Church of God, and is now 
again declared by this holy Council — That by the consecration of 
the bread and wine, there is effected a conversion of the whole sub- 
stance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, 
and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood ; 
which conversion is fitly and properly termed, by the holy Catholic 
Church, Transubstantiation. # 

" If any one shall deny that in the most holy sacrament of the 
eucharist, there are contained, truly, really, and substantially, the body 
and blood, together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus 
Christ ; or say that he is in it only as in a sign, or figure, or by his 
influence, let him be accursed ! 

" If any one shall say that in the sacrament of the eucharist, the 
substance of the bread and wine remains together with the body and 
blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and shall deny the wonderful and 
singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into his body, 
and the whole substance of the wine into his blood, the appearance only 
of bread and wine remaining, which conversion the Catholic Church 
most properly terms Transubstantiation— let him be accursed !" 



DOCTEINES — TRANSUBSTANTIATICXN". 157 

In the creed of Pius IV., to which all papists sub- 
scribe, we have this language : 

" I also believe that in the mass, a true, proper, and propitiatory 
sacrifice i3 offered unto God, for the living and the dead ; and that 
the body and blood, with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, is truly, really, and substantially, in the most holy sacrament 
of the eucharist, and that there is a conversion made of the whole 
substance of the bread into his body, and the whole substance of the 
wine into his blood. 11 

Dr. Challoner, no mean writer and unimpeachable 
authority with Eomanists, says : 

"After the consecration, provided there be no defects, there 
remains nothing of the inward substance of the bread and wine, but 
the outward appearance only ; and then, Jesus Christ himself, true, 
God and true man, soul, body, and divinity, who was bom of the 
blessed Virgin, and suffered on the cross, is truly, really, and substan- 
tially present in the eucharist ; that the sacrifice of the eucharist is the 
same as that of the cross, and not two distinct sacrifices, as Jesus never 
Jiad but one body. 11 * * * * " In the sacrament of the altar, there 
is every appearance of bread and wine ; yet neither bread nor wine 
is there. 11 

This language is clear and explicit ; and Eome, for 
once, desires to be distinctly understood. She here 
teaches that by the prayer of a priest, the bread is con- 
verted into the body of Christ, and the wine into his 
blood; that the prayer of consecration, or rather the 
" mass," is a re-offering of Christ, a "sacrifice" an atone- 
ment for sins, for " the quick and the dead f that the 
body into which the bread is converted is the very 
same body which " was born of the blessed Virgin," and 
that was crucified u on the cross." 

Let us carefully examine these positions in the light 
of Scripture and reason : 



158 THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

When the holy eucharist was instituted by the 
Saviour, he said to his disciples, giving them the bread 
which he had just consecrated and broken, " Take, eat : 
this is my body." He took the cup, and gave thanks 
and gave it to them, saying, " Drink ye all of it ; for 
this is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed 
for many for the remission of sins." Eoman Catholics 
construe this passage literally ; and upon this build 
their doctrine of transubstantiation. Protestants under- 
stand it figuratively, and hence reject the real personal 
presence. What, then, did our Lord mean by this 
language? Did he mean that the bread which he 
blessed and brake and gave to his disciples, which they 
did eat, was his living body, his flesh and blood, then 
before them, which lived till next day, was crucified, 
dead and buried, which rose the third day, and has 
ascended into the heavens and " is alive forever more" ? 
So Eome teaches, and so papists believe. Or, did he 
mean that the bread was his body, denotatively, represent- 
atively, figuratively ? So Protestants teach, and so we 
believe. And this, unquestionably, as we shall see, is 
the Saviour's meaning ; this the doctrine taught by 
him in the Gospel. 

1. The Saviour frequently taught in figurative lan- 
guage. "I am the vine, ye are the branches." "I am 
the door" u I am the way." " Ye are the salt of the 
earth ;" " the light of the world." " My sheep hear my 
voice." " Feed my sheep." " Whosoever drinheth of 
the water that I shall give him shall never thirst ; but 
the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of 
water springing up into everlasting life." l • The seven 
stars which thou sawest," said the Saviour to John in 



DOCTRINES — TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 159 

Patmos, "are the angels of the seven clmrches; and the 
seven candlesticks are the seven churches.'''' Not literally, 
really, but figuratively ; the stars were not angels, the 
candlesticks were not churches. They represented them ; 
so the bread and wine represent the body and blood 
of Christ. 

The Saviour used figurative terms, the most rigid 
papist must admit, in the very institution of this sacra- 
ment. "He took the cup, saying, drink ye all of it, 
* * * this — the cup — is my blood of the New Testa- 
ment." He blessed the cup — it was his blood — he gave, 
and they drank it. The cup, therefore, was transub- 
stantiated into the body and blood of Christ ; and the 
disciple drank it up ! But Christ did not mean the 
cup, but the wine in the cup, you say. How do you 
know ? Did Christ say so ? Why, he spoke figurative- 
ly. Yes, verily ; and the whole passage is figurative. 
The cup was not the wine in the cup ; nor was the wine 
in the cup, his blood; nor the bread, his body. They 
were the emblems, or symbolical representations of his 
body and blood. 

2. Christ said to his disciples, and to the Jews, some 
time before the Supper was instituted, "Verily, verily, 
I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of 
Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you." 
"Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath 
eternal life." Many were offended at this, and said, 
"This is a hard saying; who can hear it?" As if 
they had said, "What offensive doctrine is this? We 
cannot eat his flesh and drink his blood. Immediately, 
He replied — and the reply was made to correct their 
literal construction of his language — "What, and if ye 



160 THE GEEAT APOSTASY. 

shall see the Son of Man ascend up, where he was be- 
fore ?" " You will not eat my flesh literally, but 
spiritually,''' For this body will ascend up" "into 
heaven." He adds, that he may fully satisfy them, 
and remove all doubt and offence, " It is the Spirit 
that quicheneth ; the flesh PEOFITETH NOTHING : the 
words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they 
are life?** 

That the Saviour intended, by the phrase, " eat the 
flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood," to be 
understood in a figurative, or spiritual sense, as his own 
exposition clearly shows, is beyond all peradventure. 
The Fathers, without a solitary exception, so far as I 
have ever seen, or heard, so understood him. Ignatius, 
Cyril, Jerome, Chrysostom, Origen, Augustine, &c, and 
even Bernard, construe this passage spiritually. Au- 
gustine says, " Our Lord seems to command an atrocity. 
It is, therefore, a figure, which is to be understood in 
a spiritual sense. He is spiritually eaten and drunk. 
Eat, not with your teeth, but with your heart. Believe, 
and you have eaten ; for to believe and to eat are the 
same." Origen says, " Christians understand the ex- 
pression spiritually, and are not devourers of flesh? 
A thousand such expressions might be given. The 
Fathers were no cannibals. 

Mauricius, Bagusa, Villetan, Gerson, Jansenius, 
Biel, Tilmann, Stephen, Lin dan, and a host of others, 
able writers, and good Boman Catholics ; and Lombard, 
Aquinas, Albert, Bonaventura, &c, subtle schoolmen, 
and Bome's honored sons ; and Cardinals Alliaco, Cu- 
san, Cajetan, &c. ; all understood this passage in this 

* John vi. 53-63. 



DOCTEIKES — TRAKSUBSTANTIATTO:n t . 161 

sense. Cajetan says, "The Lord speaks* of faith." 
Cusan thus expresses himself, "This language is to 
be understood, not of visible or sacramental, but of 
spiritual manducation by faith." Popes Innocent III. 
and Pius II. concur in this exegesis. Indeed, so far 
as I can learn, this is the exposition of their Church. 

Now, the passage, " This is my body ;" "this cup is 
my blood," is of the same import — must mean the same 
thing. Or, by what rule of exegesis, by what law of 
hermeneutics, are we to understand the language, 
"Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink 
his blood, ye have no life in you" spiritually, and the 
phrase, " This is my body — my blood" literally ? If the 
one is literal, so is the other. If the one is spiritual — 
and the former, Jesus sa}^s, the Fathers say, Rome 
says, is spiritual — so is the other. Transubstantiation, 
then, has no foundation in this passage. Christ's 
w r ords " are spirit and they are life." 

3. St. Paul, in speaking of the consecrated elements, 
after all the transmuting, or transubstantiating influ- 
ence that can pass upon them, has taken place, calls 
them " bread" and "the cup." "As often as ye eat 
this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's 
death." "Let a man examine himself, and so let him 
eat of (that) bread, and drink of (that) cup* He must 
certainly have been ignorant that they had ceased to be 
" bread " and " the cup," except in " outward appear- 
ance only," and that Jesus Christ, his beloved Saviour, 
"soul, body and divinity/' was really, personally, 

* The word " that" is not clear in the original. It more properly 
reads, " eat of bread." Of course, he means consecrated bread j but 
bread still. 



162 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

present in, and concealed under, them ; that tliey were 
essentially, properly, truly, " the Christ;" or, learned 
as he was, inspired as he was, he used language wholly 
inexpressive of the doctrine he should have inculcated, 
and only calculated to deceive. No man, to whom he 
wrote, or in this day, could ever imagine that he meant 
by " bread," the "body of Christ, which was born of 
the blessed Virgin, crucified on the cross," and that 
ascended into heaven. The Apostle's exposition, there- 
fore, shows that the passage under review must be 
understood in a spiritual sense. 

4. " The Lord Jesus, in the same night in which he 
was betrayed, took bread ; and when he had given 
thanks he brake it, and said, Take eat ; this is my 
body, which is broken for you : this do in remembrance 
of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, 
when he had supped, saying, This cup is the New Tes- 
tament in my blood : this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, 
in remembrance of me." (1 Cor. xi. 23-25.) Now, here 
the Apostle teaches, that the consecration of the bread 
and wine, and the eating and drinking, are all done in 
remembrance of Christ, of his passion and death. But 
how can they be in or for a remembrance of Christ, 
when they are Christ ? as Eome teaches. Can a thing 
be in remembrance of itself ? If, as Dr. Challoner says, 
there is but one body, the bread after the prayer of the 
priest, being the same body that was crucified ; and if 
the "sacrifice of the altar is the same as that of the 
cross," then, it is a continuation of the tragic scene of 
Calvary ! and, therefore, not in remembrance of his 
death ; it is his death. "Who is right, St. Paul or 
Eome? 



-D0CTKINE3 — TRJlXSUBSTANTIATION". 163 

5. For Christ (in his body) " is not entered into the 
holy places made with hands, but into heaven itself, 
now to appear in the presence of God for us : Nor yet 
that he should offer himself often, as the high priest," 
(under the law,) " enteieth into the holy place every 
year with the blood of others ; for there must he often 
have suffered since the foundation of the world : but 
now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to 
put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. So Christ 
was once offered to bear the sins of many." * * * * 
11 This man, (Jesus,) after he had offered one sacrifice 
for sins, forever sat down on the right hand of God. 
By the which we are sanctified through the offering of 
the body of Jesus Christ once for all. For by one offer- 
ing he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified"* 
Thus an inspired Apostle speaks ; thus God teaches. 
Now listen to Eome: "In the mass a true, proper, and 
propitiatory sacrifice is offered unto God, for the living 
and the dead; and that the body and blood with the soul 
and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, is truly, really, 
and substantially, in the most holy sacrament of the 
eucharist" * * * * " The sacrifice of the eucha- 
rist is the same as that of the cross, and not two distinct 
sacrifices. 1 '' How wide the difference ! How palpable 
and great the heresy of Rome ! The Lord declares, 
that " Once He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice 
of himself" Rome replies, " In the mass, a true, proper, 
and propitiatory sacrifice is offered unto God, for the sins 
of the living and the dead" ! The Lord declares, that 
u We are sanctified through the offering of Jesus Christ 
once for all" Rome replies, "The sacrifice of the 

* Heb. ix. 24 and x. 10-14. 



164 THE GEE AT APOSTASY. 

eucharist is the SAME as that of the cross ! " Every priest 
by every prayer of consecration " sacrifices Christ 1 '' and 
" offers " Him " unto God for the living and the dead. " 
The Lord declares, that " Christ" in the body that was 
crucified, u is entered into heaven itself now to appear in 
the presence of God for us. " Borne replies, " That by 
the consecration of the bread, there is effected a con- 
version of the whole substance of the bread into the sub- 
stance of the body of Christ our Lord;" that, "then, 
Jesus Christ himself, true Cod and true man, soul, body, 
and divinity, who was born of the blessed Yirgin, and 
suffered on the cross, is truly, really, and substantially 
present" The Lord declares, that "the flesh profiteth 
nothing ; the words that I speak unto you, they are 
spirit, and they are life" Borne replies, that the body 
of Christ is literally, really, truly, present in the sacra- 
ment— u flesh, " " blood," " bones;" that we literally, 
really, truly, eat his flesh and drink his blood, and he 
that believes not this, "let him be accursed! " 

6. The literal exposition of the passage under review ; 
that the bread is converted into the body of Christ, 
truly, really, and that there "remains nothing of its 
inward substance, but the outward appearance only, " 
is contradicted and refuted by our senses. If " the in- 
ward substance of the bread " were changed " into the 
substance of the body of Christ," so that " Jesus Christ 
himself true God and true man, " were " truly, really, and 
substantially present, " then that " inward substance " 
would look like, taste like, smell like, feel like the " true, " 
u real," " substantial," body of Christ But Borne re- 
plies, "It is a miracle, and therefore his bodily appear- 
ance is not cognizable to the senses. " But this is a 



DOCTRIKES — TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 165 

subterfuge, a sophism so flimsy that it is almost un- 
worthy of the logic of the " Man of Sin." There 
never was a miracle wrought by Moses, the Prophets 
or Jesus Christ, but that the " conversion," the change, 
was cognizable to the senses. When the " rod" in the 
hand of Moses was cast down and " became a serpent," 
did it not look like a serpent, smell like a serpent, feel 
like a serpent ? Had it not the form and appearance, 
every way of a serpent ? It seemed so to Moses, for he 
" fled from before it." " And the Lord said, put forth 
thy hand and take it by the tail ! And it became a rod 
in his hand." (Exodus iv. 3, 4.) 

At the marriage in Cana of Galilee, Jesus " con- 
verted" water into wine. Was " the inward substance " 
of the water changed into wine, leaving an "outward 
appearance'' 1 only? And did not that "inward sub- 
stance " of wine, look like wine, taste like wine, smell 
like wine ? So thought the governor of the feast. He 
pronounced it " good wine." So thought Jesus ; and 
so thought St. John, who has recorded the miracle. If, 
then, bread is miraculously, or otherwise, "converted 
into the body of Christ," by the prayer of a priest, so 
that there "remains nothing of the inward substance 
of the bread," but the "outward appearance only;" 
the "inward substance" being "really, substantially, 
Christ's body," that body must be cognizable to the 
senses. There is no longer bread, but in "outward 
appearance only." What then? A miracle has been 
wrought, and the body of Christ is before us ! But it 
has not the form, size, appearance, smell, taste, " sub- 
stance," nor weight of a body! It answers not to the 
touch and other senses, as a body, as Jesus did after 



166 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

his resurrection. It is not therefore a body, cannot be a 
body, the body of Christ ! And therefore, if not bread, 
but in " outward appearance only," it is nothing ! To 
such an absurdity is Eome reduced in maintaining a 
literal exegesis of the text, " This is my body." 

7. A literal construction of this passage is philosophi- 
cally absurd. A body, the body of Christ, cannot be in 
two places at the same time. A spiritual, omnipresent 
being can be in two places at the same moment, because 
he is everywhere. But with a physical, necessarily local 
body, it is different. It must have a local habitation, 
and be, or dwell at one place, at a time ; and it cannot 
be, or dwell at any other place at the same time. The 
body of Christ, therefore, cannot be in heaven, where 
God says it is, and on a thousand altars in Eoman 
Catholic churches, created by priests, at one and the 
same time. But Eome, to escape from this absurdity, 
replies, "It is miraculous:" "God can make out of 
bread, by the prayer of a priest, the body of Christ, 
whole and entire, while that body is in heaven." God 
cannot do it. I speak from the stand-point of reason 
with which He has endowed us, enlightened by nature 
and revelation; and I would speak with reverence. 
What do we know of God, and what God can do, ex- 
cept by the exercise of reason through the light of 
nature and revelation? "What, then, does enlightened 
reason say ? God can create a body out of bread, or 
out of nothing ; but he cannot create, out of bread, a 
body that already exists ; nor can he bring into being 
the same body at different times and widely separate 
places. God cannot make the sun, the centre of the 
solar system, whole and entire, and, at the same time, 



DOCTRINES — TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 167 

make that same sun whole and entire the centre of some 
other and remote system. He who would believe and 
promulgate such an absurdity, would be regarded as 
exceedingly foolish. And yet, this is the very hind 
of absurdity which Eoman Catholics believe and pro- 
mulgate, and for a denial of which they anathematize 
Protestants. A priest, however corrupt, by the prayer 
of consecration, creates out of bread, a body that has ex- 
isted over eighteen hundred years, and that pre-existing 
body remains "whole and entire in heaven," and yet 
though nothing but bread is seen, is "whole and entire on 
the altar" ! Verily, if all the bodies created by priests 
since the Council of Trent, aye, since that of the 
fourth of Lateran , at which this doctrine was first 
decreed, were put into one body, it would be larger 
than St. Peter's Church at Eome ! 

The doctrine of Transubstantiation, therefore, — and 
let the intelligent reader judge of the correctness of the 
conclusion, — is unscriptural, unreasonable, and absurd. 
The text, "This is my body," I repeat it, must, can 
only be understood figuratively. Christ is present 
spiritually and partaken of spiritually by faith, and is 
present, and partaken of, in this sense only. 

" But that there is no necessity to understand our Saviour's words 
in the sense of Transubstantiation," says the learned Tillotson,* " I 
will take the plain concession of a great number of the most learned 
writers of the Church of Kome in this controversy. Bellarmine, 
Suarez and Yasquez do acknowledge Scotus, the great schoolman, 
to have said, ' that this doctrine cannot be evidently proved from 
Scripture ;' and Bellarmine grants this not to be improbable ; and 
Suarez and Yasquez acknowledge Hurandus to have said as much. 

* Sermons on Transubstantiation. Yol. ii p. 202, London edition. 



168 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

Ocham, another famous schoolman, says expressly, ' that the doctrine 
which holds the substance of the bread and wine to remain after 
consecration, is neither repugnant to reason nor Scripture.' Petrus 
ab Alliaco, cardinal of Cambray, says plainly, ' that the* doctrine of 
the substance of bread and wine remaining after consecration is 
more easy and free from absurdity, more rational, and no ways re- 
pugnant to the authority of Scripture ;' nay, more, that for the other 
doctrine, viz., of Transubstantiation, ' there is no evidence in Scrip- 
ture.' Gabriel Biel, another great schoolman and divine of their 
Church, freely declares, ' that as to anything expressed in the canon of 
the Scriptures, a man may believe that the substance of bread and 
wine doth remain after consecration.' Cardinal Cajetan confesseth, 
1 that the Gospel doth nowhere express that the bread is changed into 
the body of Christ ; that we have this from the Church ;' nay, he goes 
further, ' that there is nothing in the Gospel which enforceth any 
man to understand these words of Christ, this is my body, in a proper 
and not in a metaphorical sense ; but the Church having understood 
them in a proper sense, they are to " be so explained,' which words 
in the Eoman edition of Cajetan are expunged by order of Pope 
Pius V."* 

In the Council of Trent "a keen dispute arose 
between the Dominicans and the Franciscans," in refer- 
ence to the question, How is the Lord's body pro- 
duced or present in the eucharist. Bungener thus 
gives their views : 

" According to the one, the Saviour's body is made present in the 
eucharist in the way of production, that is to say, without quitting 
heaven, it is produced in the wafer ; according to the others, it is 
produced by adduction, that is to say, it really arrives from heaven 
to take the place of the substance of the bread. In the former 
case, consequently, the bread subsists, but it is changed ; in the 
latter, it is annihilated and replaced by another substance. 

" It is true, that if the miracle be once admitted, it is by pro- 

* This was not the first nor the last time Rome has expunged 
passages from her writers or the Fathers. 



DOCTRINES — TRAJSTSUBSTANTIATION. 169 

duction that one may best try to explain it : but in that case you 
challenge against the miracle in itself, one of the strongest objec- 
tions that it can encounter. What becomes of the identity and the 
unity of the body produced in several different places simultaneously ? 
This was asked by the Franciscans ; but revenge was taken on 
their adduction. Nothing in nature, said the Dominicans, is annihi- 
lated. If the eucharistic bread is not changed, but only replaced ', 
what, then, becomes of it ? And so both were right and both 
wrong."* 

The Roman Catechism, to escape the difficulties and 
absurdities which environ and are inherent in this 
question, and to unite and settle the faith of all, throws 
a flood of light, in a single sentence, upon it ! light 
which, alas ! only makes the darkness more visible. It 
says, "The bread becoming flesh, and the wine becom- 
ing blood, by a further miracle they preserve their ap- 
pearance and their taste" ! How luminous ! how satis- 
factory ! 

By a miracle, through the prayer of a priest, the 
whole substance of the bread is changed into the body 
of Christ, and the whole substance of the wine into his 
blood, so that bread and wine remain in outward ap- 
pearance only. The body and Deity of Jesus Christ 
are there. But simultaneously with this, another mira- 
cle is wrought to remove or annihilate that body, at 
least in all the essential qualities and attributes of a 
corporal being, that bread and wine may reappear, and 
remain in appearance and taste only. Of what utility., 
then, was the first miracle? What end, what good 
did it accomplish? Having expired with its birth- 
throes, and leaving no trace behind it, I am profoundly 
at a loss to understand the philosophy, or theology of 

* They never did agree, and yet were infallible. 

8 



170 THE GEE AT APOSTASY. 

it. Will infallible Mother Church, throw more " light" 
upon it, that Ave may take "due notice thereof, and 
govern ourselves accordingly"? We cannot believe 
such a tissue of nonsense, and yet if we believe it not, 
— both miracles- — everything — we must be damned! 
No man can be saved, the mother of these inexplicable 
absurdities teaches, who believes it not. The eternal 
anathema sit, "Let him be accursed," is thundered in 
his ears, and he is hopelessly damned. 

"The business of transubstantiation, therefore," as Dr. Tillotson 
justly remarks, " is not a controversy of Scripture against Scripture, 
or of reason against reason, but of downright impudence against the 
plain meaning of Scripture, and all the senses and reason of man- 
land. 

" It is a most self-evident falsehood ; and there is no doctrine or 
proposition in the world that is of itself more evidently true, than 
transubstantiation is evidently false : and yet if it were possible to be 
true, it would be the most ill-natured and pernicious truth in the 
world, because it would suffer nothing else to be true ; it is like the 
Koman Catholic Church, which will needs be the whole Christian 
Church, and will allow no other society of Christians to be any part 
of it : so transubstantiation, if it be true at all, it is all truth, and 
nothing else is true ; for it cannot be true, unless our senses, and 
the senses of all mankind, be deceived about their proper objects ; 
and if this be true and certain, then nothing else can be so ; for if 
we be not certain of what we see, we can be certain of nothing." 

This doctrine was not an article of faith in the primi- 
tive Church. The Councils of Nice, Ephesus, the first 
of Constantinople, &c, ignore it altogether. In the 
Nicean creed, there is no allusion to it. And, until 
the eighth century, so far as the voice of ecclesiastical 
history can be understood, it was never thought of; 
the most rigid literalists, amid all their errors, of this 
never dreamed. A Council at Constantinople, which 



DOCTRINES — TRANS INSTANTIATION. 



171 



was held in 754, to meet and oppose the tendency to 
image worship, which was creeping into the "Western 
Church, and was threatening, to say the least of it, to 
curse her with its senseless, baleful treason, used this 
language : " Our Lord having left us no other image of 
himself but the sacrament in which the substance of 
bread is the image of his body, we ought to make no 
other image of our Lord." Now, could the members 
of that Council, could the Church up to that time, have 
known anything about transubstantiation ? The second 
Council of Nice, which met in 787, to establish image 
worship, says: "That the sacrament is not the image 
and antitype of Christ's body and blood, but is prop- 
erly his body and blood." This was the first distinct 
intimation of this doctrine. This Bellarmine and 
others admit. Nor did it become a dogma of the 
Church then. Darkness, and superstition, and corrup- 
tion had not fully prepared the way for this crowning 
heresy ; this most absurd and wicked novelty. Pas- 
casius, in the next century, the ninth, preached it. He 
wrote a treatise in which he clearly stated and emphat- 
ically defended the corporal presence. He was the 
first, it is well known, who openly promulgated it, or 
seriously wrote about it; and hence he has been called 
its father. Sermondus, Bellarmine, and others, ac- 
knowledge this. Bellarmine says : " This author was 
the first who seriously and copiously wrote concerning 
the truth of Christ's body and blood in the eucharist." 
What ! Christianity over eight hundred years old be- 
fore any one seriously advocated transubstantiation! 
And yet, Eome now proclaims that it was instituted by 
Christ, and has ever been the doctrine of the Church ! 



172 THE GEE AT APOSTASY. 

The doctrine of Pascasius spread ; and soon the Church, 
which we are told has always been a unit and infalli- 
ble, was divided in faith, and vacillated from side to 
side. Many received the new doctrine ; but the most 
•pious, able divines, rejected it, and taught that it was 
heresy. "Kaban, Walafrid, Herebald, Prudentius, Flo- 
rous, Scotus, and Bertramn, the ablest theologians of 
the day, arrayed themselves against the novelty. Ea- 
ban, Archbishop of Mentz, who was deeply skilled in 
Latin, Greek and Hebrew, resisted the Pascasian the- 
ory with determined hostility."* 

"The controversy, for two hundred years after the Pascasian 
age, seems to have slept. The noisy polemic, on this topic, re- 
signed his pen, and Christendom, entombed in Egyptian darkness, 
sunk into immorality and superstition. Transubstantiation, in this 
destitution of literature, continued to gain ground ; till, at last, its 
pestilential breath infected all orders and ranks of men. The dog- 
ma, indeed, is calculated for the meridian of superstition. The idea 
of a visible Deity must be ever welcome to an ignorant crowd. The 
innovation, besides, made no direct or violent attack on the popular 
prepossessions. The error effected no mutilation of the ancient 
faith ; but an addition, which is calculated to become the idol of 
superstition. The Pascasian theory superinduced the corporeal on 
the spiritual presence." 

" The controversy was awakened from the sleep of two hundred 
years ,by Berengarius, in the eleventh century. This celebrated 
character was principal in the school of Tours, and afterwards 
archdeacon of Angers. He was distinguished, according to Paris, 
for genius, learning, piety, charity, holiness and humility. Follow- 
ing Bertram and Scotus on the sacrament, he publicly, 1045, opposed 
Pascasius. Many adopted and many rejected his system. The 
clergy and the laity, in the ninth century, united, in general, against 
Pascasianism ; but differed, about two hundred years after, about 
Berengarianism. The controversy was agitated in many verbal and 

* Edgar's Variations. 



DOCTRINES — TKANSUBSTANTIATION. 173 

written disputations. Berengarianisni, however, according to cotem- 
porary and succeeding historians, was the general faith of England, 
France, and Italy." 

" Berengarianism was denounced, with determined hostility and 
tremendous anathemas, by the Eoman pontiffs. Its author was per- 
secuted by Leo, Victor, Nicholas, and Alexander. He was com- 
pelled to sign three different and conflicting confessions, in three 
Roman Councils, under Nicholas and Gregory ! 

" Nicholas, in 1058, convened a Council at the Lateran against 
Berengarius. This assembly consisted of one hundred and thirteen 
bishops ; and the patron of the reputed heresy was summoned to 
attend. He complied, and supported his system with a strength of 
reason and eloquence which, Sigonius, Leo, and Henry attest, with- 
ered all opposition. All shrunk in terror, while the Vatican resounded 
with the thunder of his oratory. *..*."* His holiness, in this 
exigency, sent an express for Alberic, a cardinal-deacon of great 
erudition, who, it was hoped, could face this fearful champion of 
error. Alberic, after a warm discussion, solicited a cessation of 
arms for a week, to employ his pen against the enemy. 

" The Council, finding the insufficiency of their dialectics, threat- 
ened the application of more tangible and convincing arguments, 
which they could wield with more facility. Anathemas, excommu- 
nication, fire, and fagot, were brought into requisition. The mention 
of this kind of logic soon converted Berengarius, who was unambi- 
tious of the honor of martyrdom. Humbert was appointed to 
compose a confession for Berengarius, and executed his task to the 
satisfaction of his infallibility and the whole Council. This formu- 
lary declared, that ' the bread and wine on the altar are the Lord's 
real body and blood, which not only in a sacramental, but also in a 
sensible manner, are broken by the hands of the priest and ground 
by the teeth of the faithfuV 

" Lombard censured the grossness of this confession. Simica de- 
nounced it, if not interpreted with caution and ingenuity, as a 
greater heresy than Berengarianism. Aquinas refers the attrition 
of the teeth to the species or accidents. The angelic doctors in- 
vented a plan by which the jaws could chew form without substance, 
and masticate color, taste, and smell! 

" This precious specimen of blasphemy and absurdity, issued by 



174 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

a Roman Council, headed by a Roman pontiff, Berengarius, through 
human frailty and horror of death, signed, and swore to maintain. 
This profession, however, was only hypocrisy, and extorted by in- 
timidation. Shielded by the protection of his ancient patrons, he 
relapsed into heresy, declared his detestation of the creed which 
he had subscribed, and characterized the Roman Synod as an as- 
sembly of vanity, and the popedom as the throne of Satan. 

" Berengarius signed a second confession, in the year 1078. 
Gregory VII. assembled a Roman Council for the purpose of termi- 
nating the controversy. This Synod differed from the former in its 
decisions. Gregory and his clergy allowed Berengarius to re- 
nounce his former confession and substitute another. This, in re- 
ality, was a virtual, if not a formal condemnation and repeal of the 
creed prescribed by Nicholas and his Synod, and sanctioned by their 
authority. This new confession merely signified, that ' the bread 
and wine, after consecration, became the Lord's true body and 
blood.' " * 

" The clergy were divided in their opinions of this 
confession. One party acknowledged its Catholicism, 
while another faction maintained its heresy." If we 
are to credit Mabillon, it was the doctrine of Gregory. 
He reports him to have said: "He entertained no 
doubt but that Berengarius had, on this institution, 
adopted the Scriptural idea, and all that was necessary 
for the faith of Catholicism." According to the same 
author, the Virgin Mary entertained the same view, 
having communicated it to him. 

In the Council of Brescia, which met in 1080, Greg- 
ory himself was condemned for Berengarian heresy. 
The decision was, that he was guilty " of calling in 
question the apostolic truth of the Lord's body and 
blood." "The Queen of heaven" ought to have been 

* Edgar's Variations. 



DOCTRINES — TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 175 

found guilty also, and have been " transported to pur- 
gatory." 

" Gregory, importuned by some of the disaffected clergy, was in- 
duced to summon another Council for the final settlement of the con- 
troversy. A Eoman Synod accordingly met at the Vatican, in 1079." 
This assembly consisted of the prelacy from " the adjoining and dif- 
ferent other regions." It " displayed the utmost diversity of senti- 
ment. Some held one opinion, and some another." Berengarianism 
and transubstantiation swayed from side to side. A majority were 
in favor of the latter. " The minority represented the bread and 
wine only as signs, and the substantial body as sitting at the right 
hand of God. The disputation continued for three days. The 
Council in the end came to an agreement which, when compared 
with the two former decisions, seems to have been affected by mu- 
tual concessions. A confession was imposed on Berengarius, declar- 
ing the change in the bread and wine after consecration, to be not 
merely sacramental and figurative, but also true and substantial." 

Which, of the infallible Councils was right? And 
who of the infallible Popes, Nicholas or Gregory? 

" Transubstantiation, after the death of Berengarius, advanced 
by slow and gradual steps to maturity. Some continued to resist 
its inroads on the truths of Christian theology. But the majority 
of the clergy and laity, in the spirit of perversity and the phrensy 
of superstition, adopted the deformity. Its patrons, however, found 
great difficulty in moulding the monster into form. Many editions 
of the novelty were circulated through Christendom ; and all exhibited 
the changes of correction and the charms of variety. The Council 
of the Lateran, in 1215, enrolled it among the Canons of the Komish 
communion ; and the Lateran decision was confirmed at Constance, 
and finally established at Trent."* 

The history of this doctrine, therefore, demonstrates 
that it is a human invention. The primitive Church, in 

* Dr. Edgar's Variations. The merit of these extracts atone for 
their length. 



176 THE GEE AT APOSTASY. 

her purity and simplicity, established and taught as she 
was, by Christ and the Apostles, never heard of transub- 
stantiation. Twelve hundred years wore away, and the 
dark ages threw the pall of superstition and the gloom of 
moral death over her, and she had utterly fallen away, 
ere it became an article of faith in her creed. 

The early Fathers fully sustain this view — this his- 
tory. They have written much, and with earnest feel- 
ings and eloquence, of the sacrament of the eucharist. 
But none hold the doctrine of Trent. 

In his famous Apology, Justin says : 

" On the day of the sun we meet. The Scriptures are read, and 
then an elder exhorts the people to follow such beautiful exam- 
ples. We rise, we pray anew ; water, bread, and wine are set down. 
The presbyter gives thanks, and those present reply, Amen. A 
part of the consecrated things are distributed, and the deacons take 
the rest to the absent." 

Tertullian says : 

" Jesus Christ having taken bread, and having distributed among 
his disciples, made it his body, saying, This is my body — that is to 
say, the figure of my body."* 

Thus taught Origen : 

" If Christ, as the Marciomtes maintain, had neither flesh nor 
blood, of what body and of what blood were that bread and that 
wine the signs and images" 

As this passage could not be mutilated, Origen has 
been called a heretic by Cardinal Duperron and 
others. 

* " Acceptum panem et distributum discipuiis corpus suum feeit, di- 
cendo hoc est, corpus meum, id est figura corporis mei." Cardinal 
Duperron changes, in quoting it, id est into scilicet; and makes it 
read, "This, to wit, the figure of my body, is my body. Bellarmine 
mutilates it. He suppresses, altogether, id est figura." — Bungener. 



DOCTRINES — TKANSUBSTANTIATION". 177 

Theodoret thus teaches : 

" The Lord has honored these visible signs with the name of his 
body and his blood, not in changing their nature, but in adding grace 
to their nature." 

The eloquent Chrysostom says : 

" Before the bread is consecrated, it is called bread ; but when 
divine grace has sanctified it, by the intervention of the presbyter, 
then it no longer bears the name of bread ; it is worthy of being called 
Christ's body, although the nature of bread remains in it" 

Marcarius thus teaches : 

" Bread and wine are offered, being the figure of the flesh and 
blood of Jesus Christ. They who participate in this visible breacb 
eat spiritually the flesh of the Lord." 

St. Augustine, a great favorite with Some, says : 

" The Lord had no difficulty in saying, This is my body, when he 
gave the sign of his body." 

In his epistle to Boniface : 

" Had the sacraments no resemblance to the things whereof they 
are the sacraments, they would not be sacraments. But, in conse- 
quence of that resemblance, they take, most frequently, the name of 
the things themselves." 

Cyril, Jerome, Vigilius, Ephrem, and many others, 
speak, in glowing strains of eloquence, of the holy 
eucharist ; but not one says one word about transub- 
stantiation. On this doctrine, as now held by Eome, 
they are silent. This Cardinal Bellarmine, as we have 
seen, virtually admits. Bruys frankly confesses, "that 
transubstantiation was a discovery of the ninth cen- 
tury." He alludes to the doctrine and bold preaching 
of Pascasius. The celebrated Erasmus says; " The 
8* 



178 THE GEE AT APOSTASY. 

Church was late in defining transubstantiation." And 
Scotus acknowledges, as all who are acquainted with 
ecclesiastical history know, "That transubstantiation 
was not an article of faith before the Council of Late* 
ran, in 1215." 

What, then, becomes of the bold affirmation of the 
Trent Fathers, that this doctrine "has been always be- 
lieved in the Church of God" ? The argument is com- 
plete, the evidence overwhelming, that it is a human 
invention of the dark ages; a doctrine of "seducing 
spirits." 

But this doctrine is not only without scriptural war- 
rant and ignored by the practice of the primitive- 
Church ; and without any support from tradition or 
ecclesiastical history for eight hundred years, and 
therefore a heresy, as Eome loves to call everything 
which agrees not with her standard of faith ; but it is 
an error which, like infallibility, draws after it, as 
effect follows cause, many other errors and evils. 

IT TENDS TO MATERIALISM. 

If "by the prayer of consecration the whole substance 
of the bread is changed into the body of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, and the whole substance of the wine into his 
blood, the appearance only of bread and wine remain- 
ing," so that "the bread and wine on the altar are the 
Lord's real body and blood, which, in a sensible manner, 
are broken by the hands of the priest and ground by 
the teeth of the faithful," what is it but materialism? 
" The faithful" are taught, as we have seen, that sacra- 
ments confer grace ex opere operato ; and hence, to eat the 
real body and drink the real blood of Christ, what is it 



DOCTRINES — TRAtf SUBSTANTIATION. 179 

but to be made a partaker of him physically, or in a 
material sense ? This conclusion is not strained. It fol- 
lows from their own premises as naturally and as neces- 
sarily as water flows down hill. 

IT LEADS TO INFIDELITY. 

This, the view just presented demonstrates. But 
furthermore, there are millions who cannot believe that 
Christ is — can be present whole and entire in a piece 
of bread, which has, as it lies before them, and as they 
taste it, all the properties of bread, because it contradicts 
their senses, and is philosophically absurd. And yet 
they are taught that it is of divine institution; and 
if they believe it not, they are unceremoniously, and, 
I fear, with a demon-like feeling, anathematized — 
damned for not believing what they cannot believe. 
The intelligent mind revolts, and, in Eoman Catholic 
countries, where the blessed Bible is prohibited and 
the light of a pure Gospel shines not, goes off into 
skepticism — atheism. If the history of infidelity in 
France were written out, from its first buddings in the 
deep, doubting recesses of the inquiring, thinking soul, 
that felt its own weakness and its own power, up to 
the days of the " Eeign of Terror," when it culminated, 
it would show, I doubt not, with the clearness of the 
noonday, that the theology, and intolerant, persecuting, 
blood-thirsty spirit of Eome, had given or forced it into 
being, and supplied it with aliment. And the doctrine 
of transubstantiation occupies a pre-eminent position in 
effecting this sad work. This question, therefore, is one 
which should be thoroughly investigated. The plan 



180 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

and limits of this work forbid further inquiry into this 
dark and monstrously interesting theme. Oh, that 
some Chalmers or Clarke would penetrate its hidden 
recesses, and open to the gaze of Christians and to the 
mind of the bewildered unfortunate skeptic its profound 
depths, and lead him out into the glorious light of the 
religion which came from God ! 

IT IS BLASPHEMOUS. 

The priest creates God, and bows down and adores 
Him, and then eats and inwardly digests him ! And 
"the faithful" also "adore," and then "grind Him 
between their teeth" and " swallow" Him. 

The confession imposed upon Berengarius, to sup- 
port and defend which he was compelled to swear, will 
be remembered: "The bread and wine on the altar 
are the Lord's real body and blood, which, not only in 
a sacramental, but also in a sensible manner, are broken 
by the hands of the priest and ground by the teeth of 
the faithful" ! Language is too tame when this is simply 
characterized as blasphemous. The most bitter skeptic 
and enemy of the cross could hardly have framed a sen- 
tence soaring higher in this most detestable sin. By 
the hands, God is broken ! by the teeth, ground /*•*■*-* 
Averroes, an Arabian philosopher, exclaimed, "I have 
travelled over the world, and have found divers sects ; 
but so sottish a sect I never found as is the sect of the 
Christians ; because with their own teeth they devour 
their God whom they worship." 

"When we call the fruits of the earth Ceres, and 
wine Bacchus, we use but the common language," said 



DOCTRINES — TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 181 

Tully, a heathen; " but," he adds, " do you think any 
man so mad as to believe that which he eats to be 
God?" 

The classic scholar will recollect the exclamation of 
Cicero, " Whom do you think so demented as to be- 
lieve what he eats to be God ?" 

A Jew exclaimed : " Christians eat their God." 



THE DOCTRINE OF TRANSUBSTANTIATION LEADS TO IDOLATRY. 

When the priest has read the prayer of consecration, 
and has changed the bread into God, he " elevates the 
host," and all "the faithful" fall down and worship. 
That they worship "the body of Christ," into which, 
they say, the bread has been converted, but which, we 
affirm, is bread still, they frankly admit. An able Eoman 
Catholic writer says, "The papist believes of the most 
holy sacrament of the eucharist consecrated now by 
priests, that it really contains the body of Christ, and 
his blood ; which being there united with the divinity, 
he confesses the whole Christ to he present and him he 
adores." But more of this when I come to speak of the 
idolatry of Eome. 

IT DEIFIES THE PRIEST, AND EXALTS HIM ABOVE GOD. 

The priest creates God, creates Him at pleasure out 
of bread ! 

Now, he who creates is greater than that which is 
created — is a trite axiom within the comprehension of 
all. He who creates God must be "above God." 

Cardinal Biel, an honored son of the Church, says, 



182 > THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

"He that created me, gave me, if it be lawful to tell, 
to create himself" 

Pope Urban II. said, in a large public assembly : 

" The hands of the Pontiff are raised to an eminence granted to 
none of the angels, of creating god the creator of all things, 
and of offering him up for the salvation of the whole world."* 

" We confess that the priest is greater than Mary herself, the 
mother of God. She gave birth to Christ but' once ; but the priest 
creates Mm when he pleases, and as often as he pleases. Such is the 
tenor of a form of abjuration imposed, at the commencement of the 
last century, on the peasants of Hungary. Although the authen- 
ticity of this has been disputed, these lines, extraordinary as they 
are to reasonable Eoman Catholics, are not the less, if we admit the 
real presence, rigorously true. What Mary, blessed among all wo- 
men, viewed as the most glorious and sacred of favors, there are 
three or four hundred thousand priests throughout the world to 
whom it is a thing of daily and very simple occurrence. And when 
one thinks that the most impure and criminal of men may, in a few 
seconds, with a few hastily-uttered words, perform, when he pleases, 
this prodigy of prodigies, your head swims, in truth, in view of such 
an abyss of inconsistencies and pride. All that Egypt or India ever 
imagined, in the way of fabulous monstrosity for the elevation of 
their priests above the ordinary level of humanity, has been outdone 
by Eome, in teaching transubstantiation."f 

The authenticity of this abjuration maybe called in 
question, but it avails nothing. Father Biel uses lan- 
guage of the same import ; and Urban's, as we have 
seen, if possible, is more monstrous and blasphemous. 
Biel says, "Her ladyship once conceived the Son of 
God and the Eedeemer of the world ; while the priest 
daily calls into existence the same Deity.'''' * " * » 

What blasphemy! What iniquity ! Man is exalted 

* Bruys, Hoveden and others, give this, t Bungener's History. 



DOCTKLNES — TRAjSTSUBSTANTIATIO^. 183 

into a God! nay, above the Deity of the heavens, 
whom, though pre-existent, and "over all blessed for- 
ever more," he " daily calls into existence," "creating 
the Creator of all things" ! 

The predicted apostasy has reached its culminating 
point. The picture drawn by the Apostle eighteen 
hundred years ago, is filled up, in all its dark outlines 
and details, by the Church of Eome, and not a linger- 
ing doubt can remain that she is the Antichrist 

* * * xxx*** 

* * * * " Let no man deceive you; for that 
day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, 
and that Man of Sin he revealed, the Son of Perdition ; 
who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that 

IS CALLED GOD, OR THAT IS WORSHIPPED ; SO THAT HE, 
AS GOD, SITTETH IN" THE TEMPLE OF GOD, SHOWING 
HIMSELF THAT HE IS GOD." 



IT " LAYS ANOTHER FOUNDATION THAN THAT IS LAID, JESUS CHRIST." 

It is "a sacrifice for sins for the quick and the dead." 
By it, as a sacrifice, men are saved from sin in this 
life and from the temporal punishment due to sin in 
the world to come ; or out of purgatory. As the priest 
creates God out of bread, so he offers Him, under the 
appearance of bread, as an "acceptable sacrifice" "for 
the salvation of the world." This is most distinctly 
affirmed. Bread is offered unto God as an atonement 
for transgression, and over the bread-sacrifice the priest 
intercedes for "the transgressors." If this is not lay- 
ing another foundation; if it is not another Gospel, I 
know not what is. "The Spirit speaketh expressly, 



184 THE GEE AT APOSTASY. 

that in the latter times some shall depart from the 
faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of 
devils." 

Extreme Unction. 

Extreme unction, in the creed of Rome, is the anoint- 
ing of the sick , for the remission of sins , who are supposed 
to be at the very verge of death, with consecrated or holy 
oil This anointing was decreed to be a sacrament, by 
the Council of Trent. The oil is applied by the thumb 
of a bishop or priest, who only can officiate, in this 
ordinance, to the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hands, feet, and, 
if the patient be a male, to the loins ; to every member 
that is supposed to have been instrumental in sinning. 
A form of prayer is used. This sacrament, it is affirmed, 
" remits sins," and fits the departing soul for heaven. 
But, that the reader may know the nature and object 
of this ordinance, as held and practiced by the Church 
of Eome, I will lay before him the decree of the Coun- 
cil. It is explicit and emphatic. It runs thus : 

" Canon 1. If any shall say extreme unction is not, truly and 
properly, a sacrament instituted by Christ our Lor d % and preached 
by the apostle St James, but that it is a human invention, let him 
be accursed. 

"Canon 2. If any shall say that the holy anointing of the sick doth 
not confer grace, nor remit sins, nor relieve the sick ; but that it had 
long since ceased, as if of old, it hath only been the grace of healing, 
let him be accursed." 

Now, I most distinctly deny that it is "a sacrament 
instituted by Christ our Lord," or that it "remits sins," 
and affirm "that it is a human invention." 

And, first of all, the Trent Fathers themselves admit, 



DOCTRINES — EXTREME UNCTION. 185 

in this very decree, that Christ never instituted extreme 
unction as a sacrament, or anything else. They say : 

" This holy anointing of the sick is instituted, as it were, to be a 
true and proper sacrament of the New Testament ; insinuated, in- 
deed, by Christ our Lord, in St. Mark, but recommended and 
preached to the faithful by the apostle St. James."* 

Insinuated by Christ ! and yet instituted by him ! 
After the decree was framed in the congregation, one 
of the divines suggested that Christ could not have in- 
stituted this sacrament before he constituted his disci- 
ples priests ; and that, all agreed, he did not do until 
lie instituted the Supper. The ground, therefore, was 
changed. The passage in St. Mark, on which they had 
relied: "And they (the disciples) cast out many devils, 
and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed 
them,"f was to be understood, not as instituting, but as 
insinuating it. This was the strongest passage, and the 
only one worthy of note, be it known, brought forward 
by the advocates of this doctrine, to demonstrate that 
Christ instituted anointing with oil, or extreme unction, 
as a sacrament ; but this was given up, because the dis- 
ciples were not the priests, and Christ could only in- 
sinuate it ! Where, then, is the institution by Christ, 
our Lord ? — the solemn command and formula, exalt- 
ing the anointing of the sick with oil into the dignity 

* " Instituta est autem sacra hec unctio infirmorum, tanquani vcre 
et proprie sacramentum ISTovi Testamenti, a Christo Domino nostro, 
apud Marcurn, quidem inoinuatGm, per Jacobum autem apostotum 
fidelibus commendatum ac promulgatum." This is their precise lan- 
guage. Judge ye. 

t Mark vi. 13. But here it is not even hinted that it remits sins, 
but wa sa form used when the disciples miraculously healed. 



186 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

of a sacrament ? Where ? Were it not for the moment- 
ous issues involved in, and the awful solemnity of this 
question, one could not repress laughter at the strange 
and absurd idea, that the divine Legislator would only in- 
sinuate a doctrine essential to the remission of sins and 
the salvation of the soul. As, then, Christ did not insti- 
tute, but only insinuate this sacrament — and the Eoman 
Catechism agrees with the preamble of the Trent Fathers 
— the whole controversy turns upon the preaching of 
St. James, who, it is affirmed, promulgated and estab- 
lished it. What, then, did St. James teach? In the 
v. chapter, 14th and 15th verses, he gives the following 
instructions : 

" Is any sick among you ? let him call for the elders of the Church ; 
and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil, in the name of 
the Lord ; and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord 
shall raise him up ; and if he have committed sins, they shall be for- 
given him." 

This is all he says concerning this doctrine. Does 
this sustain, establish it, as Eome affirms? Let us 
analyze this language and critically examine it, and I 
think it will clearly appear that it does not even in- 
sinuate it. 

"Is any sick among you? let him call for the (Presbi- 
teri) elders." Were they priests ? The Council af- 
firmed they were. No proof, however, is given to sup- 
port their assumption. I affirm they were not. The 
terms they and St. James use are different, and mean 
different things. " The elders" may not even have 
been ministers. Furthermore, St. James uses the 
plural throughout. Elders were to anoint — they were 
to pray. The council requires but one priest — he does 



DOCTRINES — EXTREME UNCTION. 187 

all the manipulating, all the praying. The Council, 
then, have departed from St. James in having but one 
administrator, and in assuming that he must be a 
priest. 

u Anointing him with oil" "What kind of oil ? Com- 
mon olive oil is the most reasonable conclusion, as that 
was used by the Jews as a healing remedy. At any 
rate, it was not consecrated; but the Council requires as 
absolutely essential oil that has been consecrated by a 
bishop. If that be wanting, the dying one must perish. 
The application of the oil to the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, 
hands, feet, and loins, and the sign of the cross each 
time, is not mentioned, is not required by St. James. 
All this, therefore, is a departure from apostolic teach- 
ings, and is of human invention. 

"And the prayer of faith shall save the sick" The 
anointing, then, has no efficacy ; not the least is as- 
cribed to it. It does not heal, nor save — remits no sin, 
and therefore cannot be a sacrament in the sense 
Eome holds, conferring grace, ex opere operato. The 
prayer of faith saves, and that only, by the grace of 
God vouchsafed in answer thereto ; for " the Lord shall 
raise him up." 

"And if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven 
him." By whom shall they be forgiven? By the 
" elders" ? This is not hinted at by St. James, nor does 
even the Council affirm it. The Council has taught 
elsewhere, as we have seen, that the priest can remit 
sins. Why not, then, in this fatal hour, without 
anointing with oil? Does the application of the oil 
and the sign of the cross "forgive him"? Nay; the 
thought is not only superlatively absurd, but the ex- 



188 THE GREAT APOSTASY. ■ 

pressions used cannot be made to convey such. an idea 
By whom then are his sins forgiven him? By the 
Lord, who "raises him up," and by Him only. No 
other idea is conveyed by St. James ; no other doctrine 
can be tortured out of his language. The anointing, 
then, neither " confers grace," nor " remits sins." God 
does both in answer to the prayer of faith. 

The doctrine, then, of extreme unction, as a sacra- 
ment — a sacrament that "confers grace" and "remits 
sins," is not promulgated by St. James, nor even "in- 
sinuated" by him. And in the administration, sign, 
form, subject, and end or effects of this ordinance, as the 
Council would call it, but simple advice, we say, Eome 
differs from St. James. Everything is changed. St. 
James requires two or more administrators, and they 
elders ; Eome but one, and he a priest or bishop. St. 
James would anoint with simple oil ; Eome with con- 
secrated or holy oil. The former would apply it once, 
doubtless, to the head, and without any manipulating 
and crossing; the latter repeatedly, and to the eyes, 
ears, nose, mouth, hands, feet, and loins, with genu- 
flections and crossings. St. James would anoint the 
sick not sinking in death ; Eome only the dying. The 
former would apply the oil and pray to raise him up, 
the latter to remit his sins and fit him for the judgment. 
Eome, therefore, has changed everything ; and hence 
is without Scriptural authority in all, and even the 
sanction of apostolic tradition. 

Dr. Clarke's comment on this text is so clear, though 
similar to some of the thoughts I have just advanced, 
that I will present it in part to the reader : 



DOCTRINES — EXTREME UNCTION. 189 

" That the anointing recommended by St. James cannot be such 
as the Romish Church prescribes, and it is on this passage princi- 
pally that they found their sacrament of extreme unction, is evident 
from these considerations : 1. St. James orders the sick person to 
be anointed in reference to his cure ; but they anoint the sick in the 
agonies of death, when there is no prospect of his recovery ; and never 
administer that sacrament, as it is called, while there is any hope of 
life. 2. St. James orders this anointing for the cure of the body, 
but they apply it for the cure of the soul ; in reference to which 
use of it St. James gives no directions ; and what is said of forgive- 
ness of sins, in verse 15, is rather to be referred to faith and prayer, 
which are often the means of restoring lost health, and preventing 
premature death, when natural means, the most skilfully used, have 
been useless. 3. The anointing with oil, if ever used as a means or 
symbol in working miraculous cures, was only applied in some cases, 
perhaps very few, if any ; but the Romish Church uses it in every 
case ; and makes it necessary to the salvation of every departing 
soul. Therefore St. James' unction, and the extreme unction of the 
Romish Church, are essentially different." 

Many able Eoman Catholic -writers — men of ac- 
knowledged ability and undoubted Catholicity, Eome 
herself being judge — have admitted that this doctrine 
has no clear foundation in Scripture, was not unequivo- 
cally, like baptism, instituted by Christ, Cardinal 
Cajetan says : 

" Neither the words nor the results announced here, in St. Mark 
and St. James, indicate the sacramental unction of extreme 
unction." * 

" Saurez on Extreme Unction tells us, that ' Hugo of St. Victor, 
Peter Lombard, Alexander of Hales, Attissidore, &c, denied this 
sacrament to have been instituted by Christ ; and by plain conse- 
quence, it was not a true sacrament.' " f 

* Nee ex verbis nee ex effectis, verba hasc loquanter de sacramentali 
unctione extremse unctionis. — Works, vol. ii. 
t Ousley. 



190 THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

" Until the days of Peter Lombard (Anno. 1145), scarce any 
author could be found who rashly set down any certain number 
of sacraments, save those two of our salvation of which there is no 
dispute." * 

" "Without prejudice, it must be acknowledged, that neither did 
our Lord institute this sacrament or dispense it, nor did his 
Apostles." f 

" Chemnitius saith : ' The progress of this unction clearly shows 
it to be no sacrament ; for first, the Apostles anointed the sick 
with common oil to heal them ; then others began to add benediction 
and to consecrate the oil, but yet they used it to the same end for 
which the Apostles used it before, viz., to cure the sick miraculously, 
as appears by the miracles said to be done with holy oil by St. 
Martin and many others. But when at length miracles were quite 
ceased, the ceremony of anointing still went on.' " J 

" Extreme unction," says Dr. Edgar, " is a variation from tradition, 
as well as from revelation. The ceremony is destitute of written 
and unwritten authority, and was unknown both to the Apostles 
and Fathers of antiquity. Fleury, Ward, Sclater, Mumford, and 
Challoner, in consequence, forbear, on this topic, to make any quota- 
tions from the records of early Christianity. * * * Bellarmine 
endeavors to excuse the ancients for omitting the hi tory of this 
sacrament in their works, by alleging their want of occasion. The 
cardinal, for once, was right. The early Christian authors had no 
opportunity of discussing a non-entity. 

" The Bhemists admit that the fathers of the first four centuries 
make no mention of this institution. * * * The concession, in 
reality, is an abandonment of the cause, so far as concerns this 
source of evidence. Four hundred revolving years ran their ample 
round, and left no trace of this sacrament. The apostolic men, 
Clemens, Hennas, Barnabas, Ignatius, and Polycarp, lived, and 
wrote, and departed, without once mentioning the sacrament of the 
dying. The successors of the apostolic men, such as Justin, Irenaeus, 
Clemens, Tertullian, Cyprian, Altrenagorus, Tatian, Epiphanius, 
and the apostolic constitutions, are, on this theme, equally silent and 

* Cassander, quoted by Ousley. f Alexander of Hales, 

t Quoted by Ousley. 



DOCTKINES — EXTREME UNCTION. 191 

disobliging. The pretended Dionysius, who has left circumstantial 
details on similar topics, has, says Aquinas, made no mention of 
extreme unction. These authors have emblazoned the other sacra- 
ments in their works, and drawn minute delineations of baptism and 
the communion. These topics meet the reader's eye in nearly every 
page of their literary productions. But extreme unction, wonderful 
to tell, is never mentioned. This ceremony, which, in modern days, 
remits sin and strengthens the soul of the dying, forms no part of 
either the light or shade of the picture sketched by the pen of an- 
tiquity. This was a woful and vexatious omission in the good 
fathers, and has put many moderns to a sad puzzle. 

" The Christian men and women of old, such as Constantine, 
Helen, Anthony, Basil, Ohrysostom, Monica, and Augustine, whose 
death-bed biography has been transmitted to the present day, seem 
never to have been anointed. Their biographers never so much as 
mention the sacrament of the dying. All these, it is to be feared, 
departed without the application of the blessed oil. The holy men 
and women, in all probability, contrived getting to heaven without 
being greased for the journey. But the modern saints and sinners 
of Komanism are prepared for heaven, or purgatory, by consecrated 
oil. The death of many, in latter days, has been recorded by Surius 
and Butler ; and these, on their death-bed, were always compliment- 
ed with a plaster of blessed ointment. The modern saints make 
their exit from time, and their entrance into eternity, ornamented 
in seven different places, with the cross-streaks of the oily figures, 
formed by the graceful motion of the sacerdotal thumb.* 

" The friends of this ceremony have endeavored to prop the base- 
less fabric by historical testimony, extracted from the annals of the 
fifth and following centuries." 

But in this, as Dr. Edgar shows, they have signally 
failed. He follows the stream of history, touching this 
doctrine, through Councils and the misty mazes of su- 
perstitions writings, and thus closes : 

" The history of this innovation is easily traced. Extreme unc- 
tion, in its present form, was the child of the twelfth century. The 

* In contagious diseases, the priest applies the oil with a long rod ' 



192 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

monuments of Christian theology, for eleven hundred years, mention 
no ceremony which, in it its varied and unmeaning mummery, cor- 
responds with the unction of Romanism. The patrons of this super- 
stition have rifled the annals of ecclesiastical history for eleven ages, 
and have failed in the discovery of either precept or example for a 
rite which, they affirm, was practiced, as a sacrament, in every na- 
tion of Christendon, since the era of redemption. 

" The twelfth century, of which this filthy ceremony is the off- 
spring, was the reign of ignorance and superstition. Science and 
literature seemed, in disgust, to fly from a tasteless and degenerate 
world. Philosophy refused to shed a single ray on a grovelling race, 
who hated or despised its light. Immorality, as usual, kept pace 
with barbarism. Moral and intellectual darkness commingled their 
clouds around man, for the purpose of forming a night of concen- 
trated horror and atrocity. The king and the subject, the clergy 
and the laity, conspired against all information ; while the Sun of 
Righteousness seemed to withdraw his beams from a wicked and a 
wandering world.* 

"Amid this intellectual and moral darkness, the apostolic cere- 
mony, noticed by Mark and James, degenerated, by accumulated 
innovations, into the Romish sacrament. Superstition, from her 
overflowing fountain, poured her copious streams, which mingling, 
but not united with the Scriptural spring, formed the heterogeneous 
and unsightly mass. The simple rite was transformed into the 
clumsy sacrament. The original unction, intended for the recovery 
of health to particular individuals, continued, while the gift of heal- 
ing and the power of working miracles remained. But these, in 
process of time, ceased ; and the weakness of man prompted many 
to use the external rite, after the miraculous power was suspended, 

* Dr. Ives, late episcopal bishop of the P. E. Church, in North 
Carolina, said, in a recent lecture in Philadelphia, that that was the 
glorious age of the Church. No heresies cursed and distracted her, for 
the reason that then the priest instructed the people orally, and they 
only received knowledge at his lips, and were not cursed with the light 
and knowledge diffused by printing presses and books ! This is Roman 
ism. Give her the power, and she will turn the clock of the world 
back five hundred years, and spread the pall of the " glorious " dark 
ages over the Church and the world again. 



DOCTKINES — EXTREME UNCTION. 193 

The patient's health, not, indeed, by the miraculous application of 
the oil, but by the ordinary operations of Providence, was sometimes 
restored ; and the recovery, in these cases, was ascribed to the oint- 
ment. But many, though anointed, died ; and the observance, in 
these instances, though the body suffered,was supposed to be beneficial 
to the soul. The recovery of health, therefore, was accounted con- 
ditional, and the good of the soul was reckoned certain. Superstition, 
from day to day, and from age to age, appended new additions to 
the growing ceremony. The episcopal consecration of the oil, its 
indiscriminate application, and other innovations, dictated by the 
demon of superstition, were superinduced on the pristine institution. 
The filthy progeny of ignorance and superstition came, at last, to 
maturity. Bernard, Victor, and Lombard, in the twelfth century, 
speak of the unction of the sick in modern language, enlarged with 
the multiplied accessions of eleven hundred years. Albert, Aquinas, 
and other schoolmen, touched the picture with characteristic subtil- 
ty. These theological projectors brought the system to perfection, 
and exhibited it to the world in a finished form. The novelty, in 
1439, was adopted by Pope Eugenius and the Florentine Council, 
and stamped with the seal of their unqualified approbation and sy- 
nodal infallibility." 

The infallible Council of Trent gave it the finishing 
touch; and now, "if any shall say, extreme unction is 
not truly and properly a sacrament instituted by Christ 
our Lord, and preached by the Apostle, St. James ; but 
that it is a human invention, and doth not confer grace, 
nor remit sins, let HIM BE ACCURSED " ! ! 

Finally, this doctrine is not only without Scriptural 
warrant and traditional support, but it is wholly unne- 
cessary, one can but believe, if penance and indulgences 
confer grace and remit sins, and if transubstantiation 
imparts the divine nature and makes a partaker of the 
blessed body and blood of Christ, all of which Eome 
has decreed and "the faithful" believe. Why, to offer 
the dying, after they have purchased and fully realized 
9 ^ 



194 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

and enjoyed all these, the sacrament of extreme unction 
to " remit sins," is a solemn mockery and an insult, or 
in receiving them they have been trifled with and de- 
ceived. If the sacrament of penance has not " remitted 
sins," and the "indulgence" has not made the "soul 
pure" and "remitted the punishment due to sin," and 
if the "soul, body, and divinity of Jesus Christ" have 
not been received in the Supper, and the faithful, con- 
sequently, are not "partakers of the divine nature," but 
are sinners, what confidence can the dying have in the 
remission of sins by extreme unction? If "infallible 
Mother Church" was mistaken in the efficacy of those, 
or has deceived — and if not, the recipients must have 
been pardoned and purified and justified of all punish- 
ment, and assimilated to the divine nature, and there- 
fore have no need of extreme unction — she may be 
mistaken or deceive in this. The dying, therefore, are 
deluded with the vain hope that the holy (?) anointing 
by the priest — the priest who has absolved them, and 
at whose hands they have taken and eaten their Saviour, 
but without remission or salvation, they are now vir- 
tually told — will give them a safe exit and happy pass- 
port to bliss immortal. Oh* vain delusion ! consecrated 
oil remits no sin, saves no soul. What a "mystery 
of iniquity" is Eome! "What " deceivableness in un- 
righteousness"! 

Purgatory. 

"Purgatory" in the theology of Eome, "is a middle 
place or state, in which departed souls make expiation for 
venial faults and for the temporal punishment of mortal 



DOCTRINES — PURGATORY. 195 

sins." This Church holds sins to be " venial or mortal;" 
that is, " as trivial or aggravated." All who die guilty 
of " mortal or aggravated " sins go direct to hell, whence 
there is no escape. All who die without " venial" 
sins, or if they have been remitted, and with the re- 
mission of the temporal punishment due to all crimes, go 
immediately to heaven. But all who throw off this 
"mortal coil," with "venial" faults and temporal pun- 
ishments u unremitted" must go to purgatory, and un- 
dergo the punishment justly due; and thence, purified 
by its penal fires, pass into heaven. Hence, the Coun- 
cils of Florence and Trent taught that there are three 
classes of the human family: saints, sinners, and an 
intermediate class. Saints go to heaven, bad sinners 
to hell, and the intermediate class, or "venial" sinners, 
to purgatory. 

This is a prominent and a cherished doctrine in the 
creed of this fallen Church. 

The Council of Trent, in its decree on purgatory, 
savs: 

" There is a purgatory ; and the souls there detained are helped 
by the suffrages of the faithful, but most of all by the acceptable 
sacrifice of the altar," or mass ; and makes it absolutely obligatory 
upon all priests " constantly to hold, and most diligently to teach, 
that there is a purgatory." 

In the creed of Pius IV., to which every Eoman 
Catholic must subscribe, with the solemnity of an oath, 
we have this language : 

" I constantly hold that there is a purgatory, and that the souls 
there detained are assisted by the suffrages of the faithful." 

It is somewhat remarkable that the Council did not 



196 THE GEE AT APOSTASY. 

claim high. Scripture warrant for this doctrine, as in 
the case of penance, and transubstantiation, and extreme 
miction, and that the decree is accompanied with no 
anathema. For once, then, we can deny that a doctrine 
held by Eome is of divine institution, and breathe easy ! 
No curse bickers in the heavens, no purgatorial or 
worse fires blaze beneath our feet. Was the Council 
in such haste, though from the opening session to the 
close was only eighteen years, that it could not take 
time to write, " If any one shall say that purgatory was 
not insinuated by Christ and preached by Paul and 
Peter, let him be acccursed " ? or, were the members so 
fully conscious, so positively certain, that it had no 
shadow of foundation in Scripture, or in apostolic tra- 
dition, that it would be an unheard-of cruelty, even in 
Eome, to damn a man outright for doubting it ? Or 
was it because the closing anathemas, which sanctioned 
and embraced all the decrees, would cover and defend 
this? The last words of that Council were: "Anath- 
ema"! "Anathema" \ "Anathema"! 

Be this as it may, many able writers, since the days 
of Aquinas, have taught that this dogma is of divine 
origin, and have quoted and learnedly commented upon 
several passages in the New Testament to support their 
position. As many more, and fully as able, have con- 
fessed that this doctrine has no foundation in Scripture. 
"When infallible doctors disagree, who shall decide ? 

Dr. Milner, in his "End of Controversy," in the 
midst of a grave argument and with evident feelings 
of triumph, asks : 

" What place must that be which our Saviour called Abraham's 
bosom, where Lazarus reposed, among other just souls, till he by his 



DOCTRINES — PURGATORY. 197 

passion, paid their ransom?* Not heaven, but evidently a middle 
state. Again, of what place is it that St. Peter speaks, where 
Christ preached to those spirits that where in prison ?f It is evi- 
dently the same that is mentioned in the Apostles' creed, ' He de- 
scended into hell,' not the hell of the damned, surely, but the prison 
above mentioned, or Abraham's bosom ; in short, a middle state." 

" Abraham's bosom" a " prison" ! " purgatory" ! the 
"hell" into which the Saviour descended when he 
"preached to those spirits that were in prison"! But 
what does the isnpired evangelist teach ? Abraham ad- 
dressing the rich man, far across the impassable gulf, 
said, " Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime re- 
ceivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil 
things : but now he is comforted and thou art tormented. 
"Lazarus" "comforted" in "purgatory"! One would 
suppose that priests would not be anxious to pray souls 
out of such a place, and that "the faithful" would not 
give very freely of their hard earnings for masses to 
bring departed loved ones from such " comforts" ! 

But why did "Lazarus, and Abraham and other 
just souls," remain in that place of comfort till Christ 
" by his passion paid their ransom" ? Ah, poor souls! 
there were no priests to offer up the sacrifice of the 
altar for them, no faithful whose suffrages could reach 
and relieve them ! Though Moses and the Prophets 
and priests had lived and died, they " reposed" there and 
were "comforted," "till He, by his pardon, paid their 
ransom." But if they were "just" what ransom did 
they need? And finally, was not that ransom made 
for every soul of man? And if it redeemed and 
brought out of "the prison" of Abraham's bosom 

* Luke xvi. 19-31. t 1 Peter iii. 19. 



198 THE GEE AT APOSTASY. 

Lazarus and other just souls, will it not save/rom that 
prison just souls departing now? So much for an 
argument so at variance with Scripture and common 
sense, and so flimsy withal, that I find it difficult to 
reply to it without being exceedingly trite and com- 
mon place. 

But this argument is not only at variance with 
Scripture and common sense, but with the very nature 
of purgatory itself, as set forth by Popes, Councils, 
and theologians. Purgatory, as its name imports, is a 
place of cleansing, of purgation by suffering. Hence, 
it has been represented as a place in which the soul 
suffers keenest torture by fire, and endures most ex- 
quisite mental anguish. 

" Many have represented water, accompanied with darkness, tem- 
pest, whirlwind, snow, ice, frost, hail, and rain, as the means of pur- 
gatorial atonement. Perpetua, in a vision, saw a pond in this land 
of temporary penalty, though its waters were inaccessible to the 
thirsty inhabitants, whom it only tantalized with illusive mockery."* 
" The water of this country, in the most authentic accounts, is both 
hot and cold : and the wretched inhabitants pass in rapid but pain- 
ful transition from the warm to the frosty element — from the torrid 
to the frigid zone. The purgatorians enjoy, in succession, the cool 
and tepid bath ; and are transferred, without any useless ceremony, 
from the icy pond to the boiling cauldron."! 

Paris;}: gives the story of one Enus, who, he affirms, 
beheld by invoking the protection and the favor of the 
Son of God, the punishment of the wretched souls con- 
fined in purgatory. He went down, he informs us, in 
the spirit of course, not like poets of old into Pluto's 
dark domain, but into the " middle place" — the purga- 

* This story is given both by Bede and Bellarmine. 
t Edgar's Variations. $ Paris : pp. 83, 84. 



DOCTRINES — PURGATORY. 199 

torian world, and saw suffering souls and heard their 
groans. Dr. Edgar has condensed this wonderful 
story, and I give it in his words : 

" Numberless men and women, lying naked on the earth and 
transfixed with red-hot nails, bit the dust with pain. Devils lashed 
some with dreadful whips. Fiery dragons gnawed some with 
ignited teeth ; while flaming serpents pierced others with burning 
stings. Toads of amazing size and terror endeavored, with ugly 
beaks, to extract the hearts of many. Monstrous deformed worms, 
breathing fire from their mouths, devoured some with insatiable 
voracity. Some hung in sulphurous flames, with chains through their 
feet, legs, hands, arms, and heads, or with iron hooks in a state of 
ignition through their eyes, nose, jaws, and breasts. Some were 
roasted on spits, fried in pans, or boiled in furnaces. Many were 
hurled headlong into a fetid, tumbling, roaring river, and if any 
raised their heads above the surface, devils, running along the 
stream, sunk them again into the cold element. A sulphurous well, 
emitting flame and stench, threw up men like sparkling scintillations, 
into the air, and again received them falling into its burning mouth." 

Such, then, is purgatory, according to Bede, Bellar- 
mine, Paris, Alexander, and every other Bomanist 
whose writings I have examined, or whose opinions I 
have seen quoted, who has expressed himself on this 
subject, save Dr. Miller. Boman Catholic priests in 
Europe and America everywhere represent, at this 
day, that purgatory is a place of suffering. Without 
suffering, in a word, all agree, it would not be purga- 
tory. And yet Dr. Miller says : Abraham's bosom is 
purgatory, and that just souls repose there ! Lazarus, 
we know, in that state, was comforted. To such a pur- 
gatory, may the writer and the reader go when the 
toils of life are over ! 

Dr. Challoner, in his " Catholic Christian," labors 



200 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

hard to sustain this unscriptural dogma by the declara- 
tion of our Saviour that the sin against the Holy Giiost 
cannot be forgiven in eternity. The Saviour says : 
"The blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be for- 
given, neither in this world, neither in the world to comer* 
Thus Dr. Challoner reasons : 

" Our Lord would not have mentioned forgiveness in the world to 
come, if sins, not forgiven in this world, could not be forgiven in the 
world to come ; then, there must be a purgatory ; for no sin can enter 
into heaven to be forgiven there, and in hell there is no forgiveness 
at all." 

What masterly logic ! How lucid and triumphant 
this argument ! Some sins will never be forgiven in 
the world to come ; therefore, some sins will ; there- 
fore, " there must be a purgatory " ! The conclusion is 
based upon an inference, which inference is a fallacy. 
As one sin cannot be forgiven in the world to come, 
the inference is, others may. In other words, if Christ 
had said that a certain sin cannot be forgiven in this 
world, we would have reasonably concluded that all 
other sins may be ; that all others are of a nature to be 
forgiven. So in eternity, Dr. Challoner contends. But 
his inference is a sophism ; first, because, so far as we 
know, so far as God has revealed the plan of salvation, 
there are no means of remitting sins, and no promise 
of forgiveness in eternity. To reply that purgatorial 
fires, or sufferings of any kind, or indulgences bought, 
or masses said on earth for souls confined there, are 
the means, is to assume the truth of the doctrine in 
dispute. We deny that there is a purgatory, and ask 
what means will cleanse the soul, or remit sins in the 

* Matt. xii. 32. 



DOCTRINES — PURGATORY. 201 

world to come, and the reply is, and the only reply 
which can be given, purgatorial fires, and masses, &c, 
assuming what we deny. 

In the next place, the inference proves too much, if 
it prove anything. If we suppose that any sins, not 
against the Holy Grhost, can be forgiven in the world 
to come, we must suppose, for the same reason, that 
all sins, except that one, can be forgiven. And hence, 
every sinner who dies in his sins, who has not commit- 
ted the sin against the Holy Ghost, can be forgiven in 
the world to come ! Is there a chance, then, for all of 
us, maugre the thunders of Eome, through the fires of 
purgatory, to reach at last the haven of repose ? But 
alas for us, and for this interpretation, " Mother Church'' 
teaches, that all who die in " mortal sin" go to hell, 
whence there is no redemption. This passage, then, 
does not insinuate, much less prove, the doctrine of a 
middle state of purgation. 

The next passage on which the advocates of this 
dogma rely to demonstrate its truth, is Matt. v. 26: 
u Verily I say unto thee, thou shalt by no means come out 
thence (of prison, see verse 24), till thou hast paid the 
uttermost farthing r ." Bellarmine, Challoner, Milner, and 
others, say, the prison mentioned by our Lord is pur- 
gatory ; and that when the sufferer has paid the debt, 
or expiated the crime, or crimes for which he was cast 
into that prison, he will come out. 

" Many Komish saints and commentators, however, give a differ- 
ent explanation. Augustine, Jerome, Bede, Maldonat, and Alex- 
ander, say the prison is hell, and the punishment everlasting." 
"According to the canonized commentator of Palestine, ' The per- 
son who does not before the end of his life pay the last farthing, 
9* 



202 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

mentioned in the words of the inspired penman, will never be re- 
leased from the prison ! ' "* 

Bede says, "the term until signifies endless duration," 
as in the expression of David, cited by Paul, which, he 
quotes to sustain his view: "Till I put all his enemies 
under his feet." "Till," in this sentence, evidently 
means forever ; for Christ will reign not only when all 
enemies are put under his feet, but forever. " Maldo- 
nat," says Edgar, "concurs" in this interpretation. He 
says, " The prison signifies hell, from which the debtor, 
who will be punished with the utmost vigor, will never 
escape, because he will never pay" 

Alexander, the learned Sorbonnist, very ably sus- 
tains this interpretation and refutes Bellarmine, and 
leaves no ground on which for Challoner and Milner to 
stand. The Saviour's language, he argues, "signifies 
not whence he will afterward depart, but whence he 
will never depart. The words are spoken of hell, from 
which the condemned, who undergo the infinite pun- 
ishment of mortal sin, which they can never pay, will 
never be released." Till, when applied to things in 
eternity, means forever. "God invites his son to sit 
at his right hand, till his enemies should become his 
footstool. But he will not then leave his seat." He 
will sit there forever. So the person in prison unable 
to pay will never come out. Dr. Clarke in his com- 
ment on this passage, remarks 

" This text has been considered a proper foundation on which to 
build not only the doctrine of a purgatory, but also that of univer- 
sal restoration. But the most unwarrantable violence must be used 

* Edgar. 



DOCTRINES— PURGATORY. 203 

before it can be pressed into the service of either of the above 
unscriptural doctrines. At the most, the text can only be consid- 
ered as a metaphorical representation of the procedure of the great 
Judge ; and let it ever be remembered, that by the general consent 
of all (except the basely interested), no metaphor is ever to be pro- 
duced in proof of any doctrine. In the things that concern our 
eternal salvation, we need the most pointed and express evidence on 
which to establish the faith of our souls." 

There is another view which is fatal to the interpre- 
tation of Bellarmine, and all of that school. The Sa- 
viour says the prisoner shall not come out till he has 
paid the uttermost farthing. But the Council of Trent 
affirms, as already quoted, that "the souls detained in 
purgatory are helped by the suffrages of the faithful, 
but most of all, by the acceptable sacrifice of the altar." 
Now, if the soul in purgatory is helped by the suffrages 
of the faithful, and especially by the sacrifice of the 
altar, what is the nature and extent of that help? 
They can cancel none of the prisoner's debt, according 
to the plain word of the Great Teacher. The infalli- 
ble Council therefore was wrong, or the Teacher whom 
all know to be infallible was mistaken, or deceived us 
in teaching that the poor soul must suffer in its purga- 
torial prison or hell, till the penal fires there shall have 
burned out all its venial stains — or this doctrine has no 
foundation in the text. 

Paul's language to the Corinthians has been brought 
into requisition, and made to prove the existence of a 
purgatory. The whole passage reads thus : 

" For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is 
Jesus Christ ? Now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, 
silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubbie ; every man's work shall 
be made manifest : for the day shall declare it, because it shall be 



204: THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

r 

revealed by fire ; and the fire shall try every man's work of what 
sort it is. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, 
he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he 
shall suffer loss : but he himself shall be saved ; yet so as by fire."* 

This passage is somewhat mysterious, and hence 
susceptible of being misunderstood, and of false inter- 
pretations. It should not be brought forward, there- 
fore, to sustain any doctrine not elsewhere clearly re- 
vealed in the Scriptures. Almost any theory may be 
sustained according to such principles of exegesis. 
However, that I may not be misunderstood, this text 
does not insinuate, much less prove, the doctrine of 
purgatory. 

First of all, the language of the Apostle, as to works 
and trying them, is highly figurative: "If any man 
build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, 
wood, hay, stubble. 11 By the terms gold, silver, &c, the 
Apostle does not mean the precious metals, but the doc- 
trine and practice of the builder. By the term fire, then, 
he cannot mean real, literal fire, but some scrutinizing 
test, which, like fire, will show the gold, silver, precious 
stones, from the wood, hay, stubble ; or good doctrines 
from doubtful, or speculative and false. To teach that 
the Apostle uses figurative terms in speaking of doc- 
trines — and all must admit this — and that he uses, in 
the same sentence, as their parallel, a literal one, is to 
make him, learned as he was and inspired withal, a 
literary pretender and a blind guide. 

Furthermore, the Apostle does not say, "shall be 
saved by fire, 11 but, " so as by fire. 11 If the term fire, 
therefore, be taken in a literal sense — but this view 

* 1 Cor. iii. 11-15, 



DOCTBINES — PURGATORY. 205 

shows it cannot — the Apostle uses it to show, not that 
the builder will pass through it, but through a judg- 
ment ordeal that will test, or try his work like as fire ; 
and he shall be saved, not by, but so as by fire. He 
uses the term fire, therefore, to represent something 
else ; what this something else is, which fire symboli- 
cally represents, we are left to conjecture, and the 
learned widely disagree concerning it. Some say it 
is affliction, and an adverse, scrutinizing Providence in 
this life. Others, that it is the final judgment ; and 
yet others — the Greek Church and Greek theologians 
generally, that it is future punishment. 

" The Scriptural language, in this case," says Dr. Edgar, " is 
metaphorical. The superstructure, consisting of gold, silver, and 
precious stones, or of wood, hay, and stubble, as well as the scrutin- 
izing flame, all these are not literal but figurative. The phrase, * so 
as, 1 it is plain, denotes a comparison. The salvation, which is accom- 
plished so as by fire, is one which, as critics have shown from similar 
language in sacred and profane authors, is effected with difficulty. 
Amos, the Hebrew Prophet, represents the Jewish nation, who were 
rescued from imminent danger, ' as a fire-brand plucked out of the 
burning/ Zechariah, in the same spirit and in similar style, char- 
acterizes a person who was delivered from impending destruction, 
as a brand snatched ' out of the fire.' Diction of a similar kind, 
Oalmet, Wetstein, and other critics have shown, has been used by 
Livy, Cicero and Cyprian, for denoting great hazard and difficulty. 
Paul, in like manner, designed to tell us, that he who should blend 
vain and useless speculations with the truths of the Gospel ; but 
should rest nevertheless, in the main, on the only basis, would, in 
the end, be saved ; but with the difficulty of a person who should 
escape with the possession of his life, but with the loss of his prop- 
erty, from an overwhelming conflagration : or, according to Estius, 
like the merchant, who should gain the shore with the destruction 
of his goods, but the preservation of his life, from the tempest of 
the sea." 



206 THE GEEAT APOSTASY. 

• 

Finally, the Apostle teaches that the purifying test 
which is like, or as by fire, affects, or passes upon, 
the doctrine and not the person. His "work," if it 
stand not the test, "shall be burned." The trial, 
therefore, is not of persons in purgatory or anywhere 
else, in the sense of Eome, but of works. They shall 
suffer loss, not purgatorial pains, the loss of all their 
works, but themselves shall be saved. But let it ever 
be remembered, if they build on Christ. 

This passage, therefore, does not, in any sense, sus- 
tain the doctrine of purgatory, as held by the Church 
of Eome : a purgatory that tries the agent, not the ac- 
tion, the worker, not the works, and saves, not u so as" 
but by fire. 

Some of the advocates of this doctrine fully rely on 
the language of St. Peter, iii. chap., first letter, 18-20th 
verses, as demonstrating its truth. And this is the 
last text, worthy of note, brought forward to sustain 
this dogma. The English version reads thus : 

" For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the un- 
just, that he might bring us to God ; being put to death in the flesh, 
but quickened by the Spirit : By which also he went and preached 
unto the spirits in prison ; which sometime were disobedient, when 
once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the 
ark was a-preparing, wherein few, that is eight, souls were saved by 
water." 

Dr. Clarke, on the phrase, " By which he went and 
preached to the spirits in prison," which, he thinks, is 
not a correct translation, makes the following critical 

remarks : 

" On this word there are several various readings ; some of the 
Greek MSS. read Trvevfiari, in spirit, and one rcvevfiart 'Ayico, 



DOCTKINES — PURGATORY. 207 

in the Holy Spirit. I have before me one of the first, if not the very 
first edition of the Latin Bible ; and, in it, the verse stands thus : In 
quo e> his, qui in carcere erant spikitualiter veniens prcedicavit ; 
by which he came spiritually, and preached to them that were in 
prison ? 

" In two very ancient MSS. of the Yulgate before me, the clause 
is thus : In quo et his qui in carcere erant spiritu venient prcedicavit ; 
in which, coming by the Spirit, he preached to those who were in 
prison ? This is the reading, also, in the Complutensian Polyglot. 

"Another ancient MS. in my possession, has the words nearly as 
in the printed copy : In quo et his qui in carcere conclusi erant 
Spirifualiter veniens prcedicavit; in which, coming spiritually, ho 
preached to those who were shut up in prison ? 

"Another MS., written about A. D. 1370, is the same as the 
printed copy. 

" The common printed Vulgate is different from all these, and 
from all the MS. of the Yulgate which I have seen, in reading 
spiritibus, l to the spirits.' " 

But if we admit — which, from the above criticism? 
is more than doubtful — that the edition of the Yulgate, 
admitted to be genuine by the Eomish Church, and 
our common English version, give the Greek, and the 
precise idea of St. Peter, correctly — u he went and 
preached unto the spirits in prison " — still, this does not 
prove that there is a purgatory. A simple analysis and 
common sense criticism, I doubt not, will clearly show 
this. 

Christ, says Peter, was "put to death in the flesh, 
but quickened by the Spirit" By what Spirit? His 
own spirit? Nay, not by his human spirit, but "by 
the Spikit;" the Spirit, then, clearly the Holy Ghost 
by whom he was conceived, and by whom he was 
anointed at Jordan ; the Spirit that inspired the proph- 
ets, and who strove with the antediluvians — u By" 



208 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

not in "which" — Spirit — " also He went and preached 
unto the spirits" — living men — "in prison" — in the 
body; "which, spirits" — in living men — "sometime 
■were disobedient WHEN" — or while — "once the long suf- 
fering of God waited in the days of Noah while the ark 
was a-preparing." Then, while the ark was preparing, 
it is clear, he preached unto them "by the Spirit" In 
other words, the spirits were disobedient, all must ad- 
mitr— this Peter declares — "while the ark was a-pre- 
paring." Noah, all know, was a "preacher of righteous- 
ness" — God's preacher. The Spirit, who quickened 
and enlightened him, and moved him to preach, strove 
with the people — the disobedient — while Noah preached, 
and by and through his preaching. Christ, therefore, 
by his Spirit, through Noah, preached unto them. 
This cannot be denied ; and this, simply, is the doctrine 
taught in this mystified and much-abused passage. In- 
deed, this is the only rational exposition of which we 
can conceive. 

If we suppose, as the Trent Catechism teaches, and 
the Ehemish annotators, and Challoner, and Milner, and 
others, contend, that purgatory is meant by the term 
" prison ;" then, the wicked antediluvians, whose abom- 
inable ungodliness and corruptions have hardly ever 
been surpassed, were detained in a "middle state" — 
nay, according to Milner, in "Abraham's bosom," 
" with other just souls," till after Christ's death, whence 
they were liberated by his preaching while disembod- 
ied ! And yet, they must have died in "mortal sin " — 
a sin which excludes from purgatory and shuts up in 
hell forever, according to the theology of Eome. How, 
then, could they be saved by Christ's preaching ? And 



DOCTRINES— PURGATORY. 209 

furthermore, if the ungodly rejecters of the Gospel of 
that clay, who were swept from the earth by the wild 
waste of waters, for their very wickedness, went to 
purgatory, and that purgatory Abraham's bosom, 
where, with Lazarus and other just souls, they Were 
comforted, we, who reject the preaching of papists in 
this day, need have no fears of their anathemas and of 
their purgatory. Let them send us to Abraham's 
bosom, with other just souls, to be comforted ! 

Nor can we suppose, with the Greek Church and 
theologians, that hell is meant by the term " prison." 
Christ preached the Gospel by His spirit, " unto the 
spirits" there. And for what purpose would he preach 
the Gospel to disembodied souls hopelessly lost ? The 
idea is revoltingly absurd. 

We are thrown back, then, upon the exposition I 
have given as the only rational, tenable one. 

The " judicious Calmet," as Dr. Clarke calls him, who 
firmly holds the doctrine of purgatory as, and because, 
it is taught by his Church, doubts that it receives any 
support from this passage. Bellarmine, who quotes 
nineteen texts to sustain this dogma, rejects this one. 
Alexander, also, after bringing to the support of this 
superstition every sentence which learning and inge- 
nuity could marshal in its support and defence, rejects 
this one altogether. Not a single Father ever ex- 
pounded the passage to mean the Eomish purgatory. 
They, however, knew nothing about this doctrine. The 
moderns are more wise. 

The doctrine of purgatory, then, is without Scrip- 
tural foundation, and is purely a " human invention '' — 
a doctrine, indeed, of " seducing spirits." 



210 THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

" Many distinguished theologians of Eome have, with laudable 
candor, admitted the silence of Eevelation on this topic : and among 
the rest, Barns, Bruys, Courayer, Alphonsus, Fisher, Polydorus, 
Goto, Perionius, Picherel, Wicolius, Cajetan, and Trevern. Barns 
declares ' purgatorial punishment a matter of human opinion, which 
can be evinced neither from Scripture, Fathers, nor Councils/ 
Bruys says, ' it was unknown to the Apostles and original Chris- 
tians.' Alphonsus, Fisher, and Polydorus, ' grant the total omission 
or rare mention of this tenet in the monuments of antiquity.' Caje- 
tan and others admit the same." 

" Bellarmine and Alexander, the two celebrated advocates of this 
theology, have, between them, rejected all its Scriptural proofs, and 
agree only in one apocryphal argument."* 

The primitive Church knew nothing of this doctrine. 
For hundreds of years every Father, with one excep- 
tion perhaps, who wrote on future rewards and punish- 
ments, rejected all thought of a middle state of purga- 
tion. Clemens, Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin, Irenseus, 
Athenagoras, Augustine, and many others, speak of 
the bliss of heaven and of the anguish of hell, but 
ignore altogether the purgatory of Eome ; or if they 
allude to the theory of a middle state at all, it is in the 
clear, expressive language of Augustine, who says : 

" The idea of a third place is unknown to the Church and foreign 
to the Sacred Scriptures ;" and of Chrysostom, who affirms that, 
1 When we shall be departed out of this life, there is then no room 
for repentance ; nor will it be in our power to wash out any spots 
we have contracted, or to purge away one of the evils we have 
committed." 

But this doctrine is not only without Scriptural 
authority and early traditional support, it is in conflict 
with both. The Fathers, as we have seen, emphatically 

* Edgar's Variations.' 



DOCTRINES — PURGATORY. 211 

deny the existence of a middle state of purgation. 
They, however, were but mere men. I only appeal to 
them and to tradition to meet and refute Eome on her 
own chosen ground. The Bible is the only source and 
rule of faith. To that we must ultimately appeal every 
question. In its pages but two places of departed spirits 
are revealed to us — heaven and hell. They are the 
abodes of the righteous and of the wicked, whose states 
are forever unalterably, changelessly fixed. A great 
gulph sweeps between them, across which none can 
ever pass. 

Abraham's bosom and Paradise are terms denoting 
happiness, nothing but happiness ; and they give no 
intimation as to the place or locality of that happiness. 
There is no such place as Abraham's bosom, as a local 
habitation. It is a figurative term, meaning repose, 
bliss. So is Paradise.* To make one a place, we must 
the other also, and then there would be two middle 
states, or abodes, for the righteous. " But," it is replied^ 
^they both mean the same thing." So they do; they 
mean happiness, nothing but happiness, and leave other 
passages to reveal the place where that happiness is to 
be enjoyed, and that place is heaven. 

The plan of this work and time and space do not 
allow me to enter fully into the discussion of this in- 
teresting theme. A few brief reflections are all that I 
can throw out. 

When the dying malefactor turned his penitent heart 
to the expiring Son of God, as both hung on their 

* Dr. Clarke, in a very able criticism, shows this* He says : " The 
state oftJie blessed is certainly what our Lord here means ; in what the 
locality of that state consists, we know not." Yes we do : it is heaven. 



212 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

crosses in unutterable agony, the Saviour said : a To-day 
shalt thou be with me in Paradise." After his resur- 
rection, he said to Mary: " Touch me not; /am not yet 
ascended to my Father." Out of these two sentences, 
a middle state, or more properly, place this side of 
heaven, has been manufactured. 

Touch me not ; I am not yet ascended, &c. The pro- 
nouns me and /, have reference to the entire manhood 
of Christ— body and soul, especially to his body. The 
circumstances, and the word touch, or cling, as the 
Greek imports, prove this beyond all peradventure. 
The Saviour, therefore, meant, and only meant, as I 
can conceive, that, in his risen state, or with his body, 
he had not ascended to his Father. The word ascend 
conveys no other idea. He did not intimate, therefore, 
where His spirit had been between the crucifixion and 
the resurrection. He had been to Paradise, we know, 
to bliss ; and I undoubtingly believe, to God. Paradise 
means delight, bliss ; and the place where it is realized is 
heaven. His body had not been there ; for it was just 
risen. He meant no more. 

When Stephen was stoned to death, he saw heaven 
opened, " and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing 
on the right hand of God." He cried out, "Lord Jesus, 
receive my spirit!" Did he go to Jesus and that glory 
which ravished his dying eyes, or stop this side, at 
a middle place ? The former is the only reasonable 
inference ? 

Paul, amid the toils and afflictions of his ministry, 
as scenes of fadeless glory filled his vision and 
attracted him away to his Father's house, exclaimed : 
"lam in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart 



DOCTRINES — PURGATORY. 213 

and be with Christ; nevertheless, it is needful for you 
that I remain." The intense desire of his heart was to 
be with Christ, and this, no doubt, has long since been 
realized. He is with Christ to-day, and Christ is with 
God. 

"When Jesus was transfigured on "the holy mount," 
Moses and Elias came and talked with him. Elias had 
been translated, and taken to heaven, beyond the in- 
termediate place, if there be one. Moses was a disem 
bodied spirit, and therefore, according to this theory, 
had never seen heaven ; and, according to Eome, was 
an inhabitant of, and a sufferer in, purgatory ! ! But 
they both came together, talked together with Jesus, 
and were, as radiant figures, happy — happy, in the 
midst of the same bright glory ; and passed away to- 
gether. Now, did Elias come by Paradise, or purgatory, 
and take Moses into his fiery chariot, and then as he 
returned leave him there ? Who can imagine so for a 
single moment ? It is an idea, a shadowy something, 
rather, nothing, that I never can grasp. No, no! There 
is no middle place beyond earth. "Three abodes there 
are under the government of Almighty God : the first 
is heaven ; second, hell ; third, this world. In hell none 
are good, in heaven none bad, and both are supplied 
from the middle, in which are both good and bad. The 
servants of God, go to God, and the servants of the 
devil, and a host of others, to the devil." * St. Am- 
brose, and Gregory the Great, teach the same doctrine. 
Infallible Gregory, however, at times doubted. 

The description of the place, and of the sufferings of 
the rich man, shows that he was in, and suffering the 

* St. Patrick, quoted by Ousley. 



214 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

very pains of, hell. And if there is no middle place 
for the wicked there is none for the righteous. The 
language of Paul, of the "wood, hay, stubble," which 
shall be burned with fire, and of Peter of "the spirits 
in prison," or "descent into hell," as it has been very 
improperly called, as I have shown, have no reference 
to a middle state of any kind. Where, then, is it found ? 

Now in the face of texts, and facts, and reasons, 
wholly irreconcilable with the dogma of a middle 
state, shall we hold to this momentous doctrine, sup- 
ported as it is only by a single expression of our 
Saviour: "I am not yet ascended to my Father;" an 
expression that had reference primarily, if not exclu- 
sively, to his body? I may stand alone, but I reject 
the doctrine of a middle place or locality altogether. 

But, if I were to admit that there is a middle world, 
or locality, every text that is supposed to refer to it, 
save the one concerning the rich man, demonstrates 
that it is a place of repose, of delight, of happiness, and 
not of suffering and purgation. Not only this, but that 
none go to that place but the pure. And hence it can- 
not be the purgatory of Eome. 

The doctrine of purgatory substitutes the merit of 
suffering for the merits of Christ 

Dr. Challoner, in his Catholic Christian, says : 

"An indulgence is the releasing a true penitent from the debt of 
temporal punishment due to sin, which punishment the penitent 
must either discharge by way of satisfaction and penance here, or 
suffer in proportion to his debt." 

Bellarmine, Alexander, Milner, and, indeed, all who 
have alluded to the nature and benefits of purgatory, 
teach that it is a place of atonement and purification 



DOCTRINES — PURGATORY. 215 

by suffering. This the very name imports. The atone- 
ment, the satisfaction, offered to God, is suffering. In- 
dulgences, however, and the suffrages of the faithful, 
and the acceptable sacrifice of the mass, it is proclaimed, 
as we have seen, will redeem and release from its penal 
fire and atoning sufferings. But if the poor soul has 
left none on earth with the will, or ability to purchase 
an indulgence ; or buy a mass for him, and the faithful 
do not offer up their suffrages, he must endure all the 
punishment due for his crimes — must " suffer in pro- 
portion to his debt." But the suffering will expiate 
and the fires purify at length, and he will come out 
redeemed and disenthralled. 

Now, to ask if all this is not in conflict with the Gospel 
plan of salvation, and the clear teachings of Him who 
has brought life and immortality to light, would almost 
be an insult to common sense. The offering up of 
Jesus Christ on the cross once for all, God teaches, is 
the only sacrifice for sin ; and his blood once freely shed 
for us, the only means to purify and save. "He hath 
once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He 
might bring us to God. 11 The blood of Jesus Christ 
cleanseth from all sin. 11 Unto Him who loved us and 
washed us from our sins in his own blood. 11 "For by 
one offering He hath perfected forever them that are 
sanctified." "And their sins and iniquities will I 
remember no more. Now, where remission of these is, 
there is no more offering," or atonement, "for sin." 
No more is needed, is clearly the Apostle's meaning. 
" Sins and iniquities" being " remitted," the punish- 
ment due to them is remitted also, and hence " no more 
offering" is required. Purgatorial expiation, then, the 



216 THE GEE AT APOSTASY. 

merit of suffering, lays another foundation than that is 
laid — Jesus Christ, and subverts the ever-blessed Gos- 
pel of the grace of God. 

To escape this difficulty, we are gravely told that 
the atonement of Christ procures for us the sufferings 
and expiation of purgatory, to save us from a hell of 
unutterable and eternal anguish ; that the atonement 
of purgatory was procured by the atonement of Christ. 
We are saved by Christ through the sufferings of pur- 
gatory! Whence know they this? A doctrine so 
important, we can but believe, would, at least, have 
been insinuated in the Gospel, but this is not the case. 
Infallible Mother Church, however, supplies the omis- 
sion and reveals it to the world. 

But, first, if the atonement of Christ could not pro- 
cure our full redemption from all the penalties of law, 
but purchased purgatorial suffering, to what end is that 
suffering? It must be meritorious, or an unreasonable, 
profitless cruelty. Besides, Bellarmine, Alexander, 
Challoner, and many others, teach, if we can under- 
stand the meaning of language, that the suffering is 
expiatory ; and hence it must, say what you will, super- 
add merit to the blood of Christ. Or another founda- 
tion is laid for the salvation of the soul ; other than 
that laid by Him. 

In the next place, the same writers and Councils 
teach that indulgences, the suffrages of the faithful, and 
the acceptable sacrifice of the mass, deliver the soul at 
once from purgatory. And when we ask, will they 
deliver from its sufferings, by their own intrinsic, natu- 
ral merits ? we are assured they will not ; that all the 
merits they have are of the institution of Christ through 



DOCTRINES — PURGATORY. 217 

His blood. The atonement of Christ, therefore, through 
indulgences, &c, does save from purgatory, without the 
payment of the "debt due to sin," by suffering; or 
infallible Church is in error. Why, then, cannot and 
does not the blood of Christ save, without either indul- 
gences or suffering, if they only save through the merit 
they have derived from the atonement? Why? The 
infallible oracle is dumb. But the glorious Gospel, in 
clear, joyous tones, answers in emphatic language that 
the blood of Christ can and does save from sin, and all 
the penalties or punishments due to sin, without in- 
dulgences, or the sacrifice of the mass, or purgatorial 
sufferings. 

The position, therefore, that this doctrine lays another 
foundation than that which was laid by Jesus Christ, 
is not only not shaken by this objection, but strength- 
ened and sustained. Purgatory, then, like transub- 
stantiation, is not only a departure from the faith, but 
eternally irreconcilable with it. It is another Gospel. 

This doctrine is in conflict with penance, indulgences, 
the sacrifice of the Mass, and extreme unction. It is 
wholly unnecessary, or they have utterly failed to con- 
fer the benefits promised. It will be remembered, that 
we are distinctly taught that "penance is a sacrament ;" 
that that sacrament consists in the words of the priest : 
"I absolve thee." Sacraments, we are also taught, 
" confer grace" — " ex opere operato." The sinner, there- 
fore, receiving absolution, must — can but receive grace, 
the grace of remission, whatever may be the feel- 
ings of his mind. Indulgences, we are assured, " re- 
mit the temporal punishment due to sin, and make the 
soul white as snow." The " holy eucharist," or "mass," 
10 



218 THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

is a " sacrifice for sin," " for the living and the dead ; 
because Christ is therein contained, body, soul and 
divinity, and unbloodily immolated, who once offered 
himself bloodily on the cross."* He, therefore, for 
whom the sacrifice is offered, must realize its merits ; 
and then., in eating the body, and drinking the blood, 
and masticating the divinity, thus offered up, and given 
for and to him, he is made necessarily "a partaker of 
the divine nature." Extreme unction is " a sacrament," 
and " if any shall say that the holy anointing of the 
sick doth not remit sins and impart grace, let him be 
accursed." Now, if all this be true, the departing soul 
passes away into eternity, and stands in the presence 
of its final Judge, with all its sins remitted, with all the 
temporal punishment due to sin forever cancelled, with 
a nature assimilated to the nature of God, and filled 
and imbued with all the graces which the Holy Eoman 
Catholic Church can confer, and crowned with all her 
favors and blessings; and yet, in glorious consistency, 
Mother Church teaches that it must go to purgatory ; 
to pay, by its own suffering, the temporal punishment 
due to sin ! Or thence come out by indulgences, &c, 
which could not save from that place ! Now, these 
doctrines are false, all false, and a cheat; or purgatory 
is an imaginary place, which exists only in the brain 
of a papist. And if one is imaginary, or false, the in- 
evitable consequence is, from Eome's own premises, 
that all are. 

But the question may be asked by the uninitiated — 
and Eoman Catholics, and priests, in certain quarters, 
have tried to make a different impression : Do souls 

* Decree of the Council of Trent. 



DOCTRINES — PURGATORY. 219 

who have enjoyed all the benefits of penance, indul- 
gences, transubstantiation, and extreme unction, go to 
purgatory ? So Popes, Councils, and theologians teach. 
All, some theologians most distinctly aver, must pass 
through the penal fires of that middle world ! Even 
the immaculate Mary herself, Queen of Heaven, we are 
taught, had to pass through the cleansing ordeal to her 
seat at the right hand of her Son.* Besides, when his 
holiness Pope Gregory XVI. died, not a dozen years 
ago, " masses were said and prayers offered up" 
throughout the Eoman Catholic world, "for the repose 
of his soul." He was "infallible," so the Ultramon- 
tanists unblushingly affirm ; he was the earthly head 
and source of all grace — nay, above God, for he could 
create Him; he enjoyed through a long life the sacra- 
ments of penance and of the holy eucharist ; he was 
the fountain of indulgences — "the treasures of God's 
grace;" and he was soothed and blessed in his dying 
hour with the sacrament of extreme unction — the 
sacerdotal thumb of attendant cardinals anointed him, 
with holy oil, on the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hands, 
feet, and loins, with the sacred sign of the cross ; and 
yet he went to purgatory. So his present holiness, 
Pius IX. taught, who ordered masses for the repose of 
his soul. What hope, then, is there, for cardinals, 
bishops, priests, people, that they will ever escape its 
sufferings ; that they -will enter heaven without pass- 
ing through its fearful flames ? The faithful here, and 
a priest there, may deny that those who receive the 
sacraments, and realize their full benefits, and have 
procured a plenary indulgence, will have to pass 

* A few writers say that the fully sanctified go to heaven. 



220 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

through the fires of purgatory, but their denial is in 
conflict with the doctrine of their Church. 

If, then, penance, plenary indulgences, the sacrament 
of the mass, and extreme unction, fail to save from 
purgatory, how can they save out of it ? If, while the 
faithful live, and when they die, these means of grace 
cannot purify and save, by what rule of logic or law of 
ethics, or invention of Eome, can they bring out of 
that burning prison? If they failed before, will they 
not fail now? Having no power, no efficacy, to save 
from the middle state of purgation, and having no 
more efficacy now than they had then, common sense 
teaches that they cannot bring one soul out of it. The 
soul, then, must suffer till it pays the debt. 

To such inextricable difficulties, to such superlative 
nonsense, to such absurd errors, do the teachings of 
this fallen Church conduct us ! 

Finally, the doctrine of purgatory perpetuates the 
power of the priest over the soul, and its destiny in 
eternity. 

To the faithful, from their cradle to their grave, the 
priest, as we have seen, by Divine appointment it is 
true, he professes, is the only channel of grace ; the 
only visible, known medium and agent, through and 
by whom they can be saved. He is the keeper and 
lord of their consciences and souls. He stands as a 
daysman between offended Deity and offending man ; 
and offers sacrifices to one, and absolution to the other. 
And when the pilgrimage of life is over, and the spirit 
has gone to its middle home — from which, all that he 
could do, it could not be saved- — he still stands between 
it and God ; and by granting indulgences to surviving 



D0CTR1KES — PURGATORY. 221 

relatives, offering the acceptable sacrifice of the mass, 
he can bring it hence, and send it rejoicing up to bliss 
immortal ! Hence he is looked to and besought by 
weeping, heart-broken kindred, to interpose his au- 
thority and wonderful prerogatives to rescue the poor 
soul from its sufferings, and give it a passport to 
heaven. 

" In Ireland," says Eev. Dr. Murray, " the custom of the priest is, 
at a certain point in the service of the mass, to turn his back to the 
altar and his face to the people, and to read a long list of the names 
of deceased persons whose souls are in purgatory, and to offer up a 
prayer for their deliverance from it. This is done, or used to be 
done, in the chapels on every Sabbath. To obtain the name of a 
deceased relative on that magic list, the priest must be paid so 
much a year, varying, I believe, with the ability of the friends to 
pay. If the yearly payment is not made when due, the name of the 
person is erased from the list. A circumstance arising out of this 
custom, occurring in my boyhood, is distinctly before me : A re- 
spectable man in our parish died in middle life, leaving a widow and 
a large family of children to mourn his loss. True to her religious 
principles, and to her generous instincts, the widow had her hus- 
band's name placed on that list, and heard, with pious gratitude, 
his name read over from Sabbath to Sabbath, with a prayer offered 
for the deliverance of his soul from purgatory. After the lapse of 
two or three years, on a certain Sabbath, the name of her husband 
was omitted from the list. The fact filled her with mingled joy and 
fear ; joy, thinking that her husband had escaped from purgatory ; 
and fear, lest she had done something to offend the priest. On timid 
inquiry, she learned that his soul was yet in purgatory, but that she 
had forgotten to send in the yearly tax at the time it was due. The 
tax was promptly paid, and the name was restored on the next Sab- 
bath. With this fact I am entirely conversant ; for that widow 
was my own mother, who sought the release of the soul of my father 
from purgatory."* 

* Letters to Bishop, now Archbishop Hughes. 



222 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

Now, the money must have brought souls out of pur- 
gatory there, and not prayers and masses, or how ava- 
ricious and cruel that priest! And how cruel the 
Church ! according to her own doctrine ; she might de- 
populate that habitation of anguish and despair, and 
send its liberated millions, with rapturous hosannas 
and songs of grateful praise to Popes, and prelates, and 
priests, up to "the palace of Angels and God." Why 
does she not do it? She has the power, she affirms — 
is money wanting ? Does that save ? or move her to 
save ? 

" The doctrine of purgatory is most adroitly calculated to secure 
an irresistible influence over an ignorant and superstitious people. 
Only let it be believed, that the soul is exquisitely tormented in a 
fire, from which the celebration of masses can deliver it, and the 
priest has at once a strong rein upon the necks of surviving relatives 
and friends, and a sure key to their pockets. Accordingly, masses 
for souls in purgatory have always been a most gainful trade to the 
Church of Eome. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Council 
commands that the existence of purgatory be believed, held, taught, 
and everywhere preached." * 

But God never gave to His Apostles, nor to His 
Church — much less has He given to Eoman Catholic 
priests — power over souls in eternity; nor committed 
to them, in any way, or sense, means of grace to affect 
them there. The doctrine of purgatory, therefore, I 
would say once again, is of human invention — a foun- 
dation never laid by Jesus Christ. 

We have thus briefly examined — briefly for the mo- 
mentous interest involved in them — the doctrines of 
Infallibility, Auricular Confession, Priestly Absolution 
and Indulgences, Transubstantiation, Extreme Unction, 

* Master-Key to Popery. 



DOCTRINES — PURGATORY. 223 

and Purgatory, as held by the Church of Rome, and to 
what conclusion are we irresistibly, infallibly con- 
ducted? That she is the "falling away" predicted by 
St. Paul, the Great Apostasy. In each and all she 
has " departed from the faith," and has, therefore, 
ceased— long since ceased — to be a Church of Christ. 
She is of God rejected, and is verily, truly, the Anti- 
christ. 

Here, then, may we pause — pause, and wonder at the 
varied and profound errors which, in the teachings of 
a Church professing infallibility, have accumulated 
around the cross of Christ, obscuring its glory, and 
shutting up the way to heaven and to the tree of life — 
pause, and leave the good Eomanist in purgatory, 
whence, in due time, he may come out, by indulgences, 
or by the suffrages of the faithful, or by the acceptable 
sacrifice of the altar, or by his own sufferings ; and I defy 
the divines of Rome to tell which — from him who now 
wears the tiara and sitteth in the Temple of God, down 
to the boy-priest of Maynooth ordained to-day. 



CHAPTER IV. 

PKACTICE OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. 

Practice is a test of doctrine. The Divine Redeemer 
has taught : "If any man will do His will, he shall 
know of the doctrine, whether it be of God." Obedi- 
ence, therefore, to a command, or the practice of a 
dogma, demonstrates its origin, its truth or falsehood, 
and its adaptation to accomplish the end proposed. 
Hence, in the practical workings of any system, or doc- 
trine, we "know whether it is of God." As the stream 
reveals the fountain, so the life makes manifest the 
doctrine. 

The inductive philosophy of Bacon teaches the same 
lesson, and, I may add, demonstrates its truth. 

The Great Teacher has also declared, that "The tree 
is known by his fruit." For " every good tree bringeth 
forth good fruit ; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil 
fruit." "Wherefore, by their fruits ye shall know 
them." What, then, are the fruits of Romanism ? What 
evidence does her practice give, that her doctrines are 
from God ? A thorough examination of the effects of 
her teachings when reduced to practice, in answer to 
this question, is the design of this chapter. What, 
then, is her practice ? 

(224) 



PRACTICE — IDOLATRY. 225 



The Church of Borne is Idolatrous. 

This is a very grave charge, and should not be made 
without the most indubitable proof. The proof is at 
hand, clear and abundant. 

That Eoman Catholics worship the "host" or bow 
down unto and adore consecrated bread and wine, which 
Mother Church teaches them have been converted into 
the body and blood of Christ, is frankly admitted; and 
is known and read of all men. Indeed, all are anathe- 
matized who deny the conversion, and will not bow 
down and adore the new-made Christ. 

" This Council (of Trent) teacheth, and openly professes, that in 
the pure and holy sacrament of the eucharist, after the consecration 
of the bread and wine, is our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and man, 
truly, really and substantially contained, under the appearance of 
these visible things : nor are these matters self-contradictory, that 
this our Saviour always sits at the right hand of the Father in 
heaven, according to the natural manner of existing ; and that, not- 
withstanding he is in many other places sacramentally present to us 
with his substance, there is therefore no room to doubt but that the 
faithful of Christ should adore his most holy sacrament with that 
highest worship due to the true God, according to the constant usage 
in the Catholic Church. Nor is it the less to be thus adored, that 
it was instituted by Christ our Lord to be eaten. 

" If any one shall say that this holy sacrament should not be 
adored, nor solemnly carried about in processions, nor held up 
publicly to the people to adore it, or that its worshippers are idola- 
ters, let him be accursed." 

This is enough. Rome declares that she " adores" 

the " most holy sacrament with that highest worship 

due to the true God;" that this is her "constant 

usage;" that it is " carried about in processions " and 

10* 



226 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

" held up publicly to the people to adore it." Now, 
this is idolatry. It is giving to the creature, to conse- 
crated oread, but bread still, the "highest worship due 
to the true God." This is the very essense of idolatry. 

The teachings of Eome herself is strong evidence 
that it is idolatry, and would drive me to this belief 
if I had no other reasons at hand. The God whom she 
has just created and " adored" she declares she a eats 
and inwardly digests.' 1 '' Now, can Roman Catholics, can 
any man in his senses, believe that they can " eat and 
inwardly digest" God? And yet, that which they 
have eaten, they adored as God ! 

In the " Missal," or " Mass-Book," we have this lan- 
guage: "Should any priest not intend to consecrate, 
there is no sacrament, because intention is necessary." 
And furthermore, " If there be any defects in the matter, 
form, intention, or minister, the consecration is null and 
void.""* " Then," it is added, u Christ is not in the mass — 
nothing but mere bread and wine still." Hence Cardi- 
nal Bellarmine affirms, that " No man can be certain 
with the certainty of faith, that he receives a true sacra- 
ment ; because it depends on the minister's intention to 
consecrate, and none can see another's intention." Now, 
if converting the bread into the body of Christ depends 
on all these things ; if when any one of them is want- 
ing " nothing but bread remains," and if, consequently, 
none " can be certain with the certainty of faith " that 
the conversion has taken place, and that Christ is pres- 
ent and not mere bread — then, none can know certainly 
that they worship God, or bread. And if ever a case 

* A number of defects that may occur in the form, minister, and 
matter, are mentioned. 



PRACTICE — IDOLATRY. 227 

has occurred, in the millions of consecrations, and many 
have, when " the consecration was null and void," 
nothing but "mere bread" remaining, the worshippers 
were guilty, Eome herself being judge, of "gross 
idolatry.' 1 '' 

The disciples did not worship the sacrament on the 
night of its institution, consecrated as it was by Christ 
himself. Nor did apostles, evangelists, or " the faith- 
ful," for hundreds of years, ever bow down before and 
adore it. The learned Tillotson says, "The doctrine 
of the corporeal presence of Christ in the eucharist, was 
first started about the year 750." Nor was it till the 
year 1251, that host-worship was made an article ol 
faith. Honorius III. decreed that the priest, when the 
consecration was complete, should "elevate the host," 
and that the people should prostrate themselves and 
worship it. And about the year 1220 he directed that 
on the places in which the " host " was reserved for 
the sick, these words should be written, " Hie Deum 
Adora." "Worship God here. 11 

The veneration paid to the images and relics of saints 
by Eoman Catholics, and their bowing down before 
them, is idolatry. Ever since the second Council of 
Nice, in 787, images and relics of saints have been 
venerated, and, as I shall show, again and again wor- 
shipped. Listen at the Trent creed : 

" The images of Christ, of the Virgin Mary, and of other saints, 
shall be had, consecrated, retained, and duly worshipped by kissing 
them, and with uncovered head bowing down before them and their 
relics.'' 1 

In the "Eituale Eomanum," authorized by Pope 



228 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

Urban VIII., the following prayer is used in the conse- 
cration of images: 

" Grant, God, that whosoever before this image shall diligently 
and humbly upon his knees worship and honor thy only begotten 
Son ; or the blessed Virgin (according as the image is that is con- 
secrating), or this glorious Apostle, or Martyr, or Confessor, or 
Yirgin, that he may obtain by his or her merits, and intercession, 
grace in this present life, and eternal glory hereafter." 

The following is quoted from a Catechism for the 
Eoman Catholics of Ireland, by Dr. Butler, published 
some years ago : 

"Q. Why do Catholics kneel before "the images of the saints ? 

"A. To honor Christ and his saints, whom their images repre- 
sent. 

" Q. Is it proper to show any mark of respect to the crucifix, and 
the picture of Jesus Christ and his saints ? 

"A. Yes : because they relate to Christ and his saints, being rep- 
resentations and memorials of them." 

" The worship of this picture" (the image of St. Dominic) " has 
become so famous through all Christendom, that multitudes of peo- 
ple, to the number of a hundred thousand and upwards, flock 
annually to pay their devotions to it."* 

In the Ara Celi church at Eome, there is a " wooden 
doll about two feet long," called, in Italian, "Bam- 
bino" "the child." This image represents the infant 
Jesus, and is thus described by the Bev. Dr. Murray : 

" I entered the little chapel where this image is kept in state, just 
in time to see his little reverence go through a healing process." 
" There were there, kneeling before the altar, three poor women 
with a sick child. The priest who acted in the affair was going 
through some ceremony before the altar. Soon he turned to the 

* Middleton's Letter from Home. 



PKACTICE — IDOLATRY. 229 

right, and with a solemnity which, because feigned, was laughable, 
opened a little cradle in which lay the glittering doll. He prayed 
over it ; and then, taking it in his hands as if unworthy to touch it, 
placed it in an upright position on the altar. Here he prayed over 
it again. He then took it in his hands, and touched, with its toe, 
the head of the sick child, and crossed it with it. He then put its 
toe to the lips of the child, which was made to kiss it. And then 
each of the women, who were all the while upon their knees, kissed 
its foot. * * * * Bambino was put back in his beautiful cradle, 
and the women withdrew."* 

Now, if all this is not idolatry, the world is not now 
and never has been cursed with this sin and evil. 
But to the law and to the testimony. In the twentieth 
chapter of Exodus we have the ten commandments ; 
the first and second read thus : 

" 1. Thou shalt have no other Gods before me." 

" 2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any 
likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth 
beneath, or that is in the water under the earth : thou shalt not 
bow down thyself to them, nor serve them : for I the Lord thy God 
am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the 
children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate 
me." 

What is Bambino but a graven image of Jesus? 
And what are the images of which the Trent creed 
speaks — "of Jesus and the Virgin, and of other 
saints," but the likenesses of things that are in heaven 
above, and in the earth beneath ? And what is the 
image of St. Dominic, to which so many flocked to pay 
their devotions ? And what is the bowing clown before 

* This doll was recently described by a writer in " The Wilming- 
ton Journal." Its clothes and jewels, he says, cost $30,000. 



230 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

these but a direct violation of the command, " Thou 
shalt not bow down thyself to them" ? Eoman Catho- 
lics have never denied that they bow down before 
them. Say they : " We bow down before them to 
enliven our devotions." " The images bring vividly 
to our minds the Saviour or saints whom they repre- 
sent." This was precisely the view that intelligent 
heathen took of their image-worship. Plato, and Soc- 
rates, and Cicero, did not believe that the image was 
the divinity, or god ; but that it represented him or her. 
The image brought vividly before the mind the god, 
his power, his character, his deeds ; and Jupiter, or 
Mars, or Apollo, or Minerva, whose image it was, 
would hear and answer as the suppliant bowed down 
before it. If that was idolatry, so is the bowing down 
and praying before images of saints. 

But worse than this, the Eoman Catholic Church 
has stricken out the second command from nearly all her 
Catechisms and religious works, published for u the 
faithful," in their vernacular tongue. Indeed, until 
since the Reformation, and then, per force of Protest- 
ant arguments and influence, the second command was 
never given to the people for over six hundred years. 
The tenth commandment was divided into two ! 

The commandments are thus given by Eev. Dr. 
Butler in his " Catechism for Ireland ; revised, approved 
and recommended by the Archbishops ;"* 

" Q. Say the ten commandments of God. 

"A. 1. I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no strange Gods 
before me. 

" 2. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. 

* This was published at Dublin, 1811. 



PRACTICE — IDOLATRY. 231 

" 3. Kemember that thou keep holy the Sabbath day 

" 4. Honor thy father and mother. 

"5. Thou shalt not kill. 

" 6. Thou shalt not commit adultery. 

" 7. Thou shalt not steal. 

" 8. Thou shalt not bear false witness, &c. 

"9. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife. 

" 10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods." 

The second command is left out. "What sacrilege ! 
What daring impiety ! The children of poor Ireland 
are not to know that the God who made them pro- 
claims in his holy law, "Thou shalt not bow down 
thyself to graven images." "And this mutilated copy 
of the divine commandments," says an able writer, 
" was the only one to be found in the manuals of the 
Eomish Church before the Eeformation, and even at a 
later period." And Bishop Stillingfleet affirms : " I 
have now before me the reformed office of the blessed 
Virgin, printed at Salamanca, A.D., 1588, published 
by order of Pius V., where the second command is so 
left out, and so in the English office at Antwerp, A.D., 
1658. I wish," he adds, "he (the papist) had told us 
in what public office of their Church it is to be found." 

In the "Christian's Guide to Heaven 1 ' the second com- 
mandment is wholly left out, and the tenth divided 
into two. A book which mutilates the divine com- 
mands, and instructs in, and urges to a practice, em- 
phatically forbidden in the part stricken out, a guide 
to heaven ! And that book published under the eye, 
and with the approbation of one of the chief, and who is 
said to have been one among the most pious officers of 
the Church ! 

In the Douay Catechism, the second command is 



232 THE GEEAT APOSTASY. 

• 

blended with the first, and the ninth divided as usual 
into the ninth and tenth. And this is the only cate- 
chism or Roman Catholic work with which I have met, 
that gives, in any form or connection, the second com 
mand ; and this, as I shall show, is so erroneously 
translated, that the meaning is entirely changed. The 
reasons usually offered by the theologians of Eome 
for this omission and mutilation are: '-It is unneces- 
sary to give the second command, as the first contains 
what it enjoins ; and it is so long, that the memory of 
the child, being burdened, would not retain it" ! Then 
why did God give it to us ? Why publish it, blended 
with the first, in the Douay Catechism ? And why 
omit it in the " Christian's Guide to Heaven" ? a, work 
for mature memories. 

But to show that the second command is important, 
that its very letter clearly, unequivocally prohibits the 
practice of bowing down to images, and that it sorely 
troubles the teachers' in this fallen Church, the Douay 
Catechism renders the Hebrew thus : " Thou shalt not 
adore nor worship them." This is a perversion ; a 
pious fraud, which the translator, if he knew anything 
of Hebrew, must have known. If it be unnecessary, 
or cannot be remembered, or mean but little, why not 
render it correctly ? 

The Hebrew, which is now before me, reads thus : 
tnnsn abi snb mn™n ab- An exact literal transla- 

•• : t r : v t v -: : • 

tion, just as it stands, is this : "Thou shalt not bow 
down thyself to them ; thou shalt not serve them? About 
the second clause : " Thou shalt not serve them," there 
is no dispute. The catechism gives this translation ; 
nor do we allege that Eome serves them. But the first, 



PRACTICE — IDOLATRY. 233 

as above, the catechism renders, "Thou shalt not 
adore them." Now the word, the verb nnti»* means to 

' T T 

bow down ; only, and always to bow down. It never 
means adore, in all the Bible. 

Gesenius, than whom no lexicographer knew better, 
gives the following meanings : " 1. To bow down, to 
prostrate oneself in order to do him honor and reverence. 
2. To bow down before God, to worship." 

It never did, it never can mean adoration. He who 
bows may adore in bowing, or when bowed down, 
but this would be still more fatal to image worship. 

Furthermore, this verb as it stands before us written 
by the finger of God, is in the Hithpael conjugation, 
which designates action springing from and terminating 
in itself or the agent. Thus, in Genesis xxxiii. 6 : 
^inriprn, "And they bowed down themselves. " And 
in 2 Kings, v. 18, in Chaldee: yi^ rM Wigjramt, 
u When I bow down myself in the house of Rim- 
rnon." And in a hundred other chapters. To render, 
therefore, the verb nrmi, " adore," is not only an utter 
perversion of the meaning, but as it stands in this text, 
is to make nonsense of it. To render it grammatically 
in Rome's sense, it would read, " Thou shalt not adore 
thyself to them" ! Thyself is an integral part of it. 

But the word in dispute and its cognates not only 
always means to bow down, but sometimes carries with 
it the idea of veneration, of worship, of prayer. In 
the lxxii. Psalm, the worship of Messiah is simply ex- 
pressed in these words : " They that dwell in the wil- 
derness shall bow before Him. Bowing before Him is 
submission, veneration, worship. What, then, is bow- 

* This is the sure root. 



234 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

ing before his image, or Bambino, or the image of 
Mary, etc.? 

In the xx. chapter of 1 Kings, 19th verse, the same 
idea is presented : " Yet I have left me seven thousand 
in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto 
Baal." Simply bowing the knee unto the image of 
Baal — for the silver or the wood before them was but 
the image — was idolatry. What is it, then, to bow the 
knee before the image of St. Dominico, of the Virgin, 
or of Gregory the Great? Ah, what is it "duly to 
worship by kissing them, and with uncovered head to bow 
down before them"? Idolatry, nothing but idolatry. 
Idolatry, the more revolting and damnable, because it 
is practiced under the name of our holy Christianity. 

The invocation of saints and angels, and of the Virgin 
Mary, is idolatry. That Boman Catholics pray to, or 
invocate saints and the Virgin, is admitted by bishops, 
priests, and people. Popes and Councils command it. 
That they pray to them, however, to grant of their owi; 
power the favors and blessings for which they ask, they 
deny. They pray to the saint to intercede with the 
Son, to intercede with the Father, to vouchsafe the boon 
desired ! But even this, as I shall show, is both fool- 
ishness and idolatry. It is foolishness. Where is the 
saint ? Is he omnipresent ? or has he a local habita- 
tion ? Is he in heaven? or purgatory? or at some place 
on earth — Eome, Paris, London, New York, Charles- 
ton? He must be at some place, and can only be at that 
place, and absent from all others at the same time he is 
there. Now, take a prayer to St. Augustine. The 
hour for vespers has come. Hundreds of worshippers 
in the same meridian — London, Paris, Madrid, or Wil- 



PR ACTTCE — IDOLATRY. 235 

mington, Kichmond, Washington, Albany — are pray- 
ing to him at the same time. Can he hear them all ? 
Then he is omnipresent — God. If he cannot hear them 
all, then all of them but one pray to nothing* to inter- 
cede -with the Son for them ! This is Eoman Catholic 
theology. But could he hear, even this would be idola- 
try. To pay religious adoration, in any sense, to the 
creature, is idolatry. To bow down before saints or 
angels, and invocate them as intercessors or mediators, 
when God declares that there is but one mediator — 
Christ Jesus, and ask of them any blessing, is giving 
the glory of God to another — which is the very essence 
of idolatry. 

The denial that the Church teaches "the faithful" to 
pray to saints, and especially the Virgin Mary, to grant 
of themselves blessings, and that they do so pray, is 
Jesuitical. We can understand plain Latin sentences 
and common English. 

In the "Christian's Guide to Heaven," now before 
us, we have, with a great deal more of the same kind, 
the following directions and prayers : 

a TO our angel guardian and all the holy angels. 
" We should have for our Guardian Angels the highest sentiment 
of respect, of thanksgiving, of love, and confidence ; their dignity 
their good offices, and the esteem they have for us, most justly de- 
mand this. We should constantly invoke their assistance, and consult 
them in all we undertake. 7 ^ 

* I believe even that one prays to nothing; the saint, if he be a saint 
is in heaven. How, then, can he hear any one on earth. Suppose 
now, while I write in my study, I were to fall on my knees and pray to 
Pius IX., who is in Rome, to intercede with the Son forme, would not 
people think me insane ? 

t The italicising is my own. And I would say, once for all, that, in 
quoting, I frequently italicise, and cannot stop to notice it. 



236 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

"A prayer to our angel guardian. 

" Holy Angel ! to whose eare God in his mercy hath commit- 
ted me ; thou who assistest me in my wants, who consolest me in my 
afflictions, who supportest me when dejected, and who constantly 
obtainest for me new favors ; I return thee now most sincere and 
humble thanks ; and conjure thee, amiable Guide ! to continue 
still thy care ; to defend me against my enemies ; to remove from 
me the occasions of sin ; to obtain for me a docility to thy holy in- 
spirations ; to protect me, in particular, at the hour of my death ; 
and then conduct me to the mansions of eternal repose. Amen."* 

If this is not praying to a creature to grant of himself 
blessings that God only can vouchsafe ; if it is not 
adoring the creature with the highest adoration due 
only to Jehovah, I cannot "understand the meaning of 
language. Let the intelligent reader judge. 

• 

" A PRAYER TO ST. MICHAEL. 

" Glorious St. Michael, Prince of the heavenly host !" " who didst 
fight with the dragon, the old serpent, and didst cast him out of 
heaven ;" " I earnestly entreat thee to assist me also, in the painful 
and dangerous conflict which I have to sustain against the same for- 
midable foe." 

"A PRAYER TO ST. JOSEPH.f 

" Great Saint ! who art the wise and faithful servant whom 
God hath charged with the care of his family." * * * " Chaste 
spouse of the mother of God ! thou model of pure, humble, and in- 
terior souls ! be touched with the confidence we have in thee ; and 
graciously accept these testimonies of devotion." 

From the prayer, or thanksgiving, in honor of the 
patron saint of the place where we dwell, as given in 
the Eomish Litany, I take the following sentence : 

"And thou great saint ! vouchsafe to make us every 
day experience the powerful effects of thy protection.' ' 

* Page 177. t The husband of Mary. 



PRACTICE — IDOLATRY. 237 

Who, but a Eoman Catholic, could ever use language 
like this, except to God only ? 

To St. Augustine, St. Patrick, St. Dominic, &c, &c, 
petitions are earnestly offered up for protection, assist- 
ance, guidance, favor \ deliverance, life; and devout 
thanksgivings are poured forth for all these. To quote 
all, would be, in part, to give a Eoman Catholic Prayer 
Book. 

" PRAYER TO THE VIRGIN MARY.f 

" We fly to thy patronage, holy Mother of God ! despise not 
our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us from all danger, 
ever gracious and blessed Virgin " ! 

" Holy Mary, Mother of Grace, Cause of our Joy, Spiritual Vessel, 
Ark of the Covenant, Gate of Heaven, Health of the Weak Befuge 
of Sinners, Comforter of the Afflicted, Help of Christians.' 7 

I have not given the prayer in full — it is unneces- 
sary ; it is all of the same kind. Now, surely, such 
language needs no comment. If this is not giving the 
glory of God to another, and therefore gross idolatry, 
I cannot understand in what the giving of the glory of 
God to another consists. The precepts and commands 
of the Bible must be fables, or a dead letter, or the 
worship of the " Queen of Heaven," as Mary is fre- 
quently termed, and Juno, and Diana, and Minerva, 
must be idolatry. 

In another prayer in the " Office of the Virgin," we 
have this language : 

" glorious Virgin,! 
Thou art the gate of the great King, and the shining palace of light. 
Ye redeemed nations, clap your hands, that life is given by a Virgin." 

* " Litany of the Lady of Loretto." 

t See the original, O gloriosa Virginum. 



238 THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

In the prayer commencing, "Serenissima Impera- 
trix coeli,"* "Most serene Empress of heaven," we 
have these petitions : 

"Incline, most benignant Mother, the ears of thy kindness to 
our fervent prayers. Bemember, glorious Mother of God, the 
glorious things which are spoken of thee and have been done by thee. 
* * * * p or thou (like Esther) beautiful and fair in the eyes 
of God, the Most High King, obtainest life eternal for many, who, 
by their sins, deserved damnation." 

In another prayer, the supplicant cries out. 

" I beseech thee, Holy Lady Mary, Mother of God ! most full 
of pity, daughter of the Supreme King — mother most glorious — the 
consolation of the afflicted — the way of frose who go astray — the 
salvation of all who hope in thee — the fountain of compassion — the 
the fountain of salvation and grace — the fountain of piety and joy — 
the fountain of life and pardon " ! 

And in another : 

" Incline, Mother of Mercy, the ears of thy pity to my un- 
worthy supplications, and be pitiful and propitious to me, a very 
great sinner, and be thou my helper in all things." 

If this is not idolatry, idolatry of the worst kind un- 
masked, let Eoman Catholic theologians show in what 
it differs from the worship of Diana or Minerva. The 
argument usually offered does not meet the case — that 
they petition the Saints and Virgin to intercede with 
the Son for them — for the above are petitions to the 
Saints and Yirgin, to grant of themselves, grace, pardon, 
life, which God only can give. Nor will the plea 
answer that these prayers have become obsolete — not 
used in this country, &c The most of them, I know, 
are used ; all of them have been printed and in iise in 

* This prayer has never been given in English by a Papist. 



PRACTICE — IDOLATRY. 239 

the present century, and Borne, "the faithful" boast, 
never changes.* 

But not only do Eoman Catholics offer prayers and 
supplications to Mary as a Goddess, they chant her 
praise in fervid poetic language, and in songs which 
clearly indicate that she is coequal with the Son. 

In the " Guide," f under the head of 

"VESPERS FOR SUNDAYS," 

we have the following : 

" Hail, Mary, Queen of heavenly spheres ! 
Hail, whom the angelic host reveres ! 
Hail, fruitful root, hail sacred gate ! 
Whence the world's light derives its date ! 
glorious maid, with beauty blessed ! 
May joys eternal fill thy breast !" 

In connection with this, we have the subjoined, I 
may call it, poetic prayer : 

" Hail, Queen, mother of mercy ! hail, our life, our comfort, 
and our hope. 

" We, the banished children of Eve, cry unto thee. To thee we 
send up our sighs, groaning and weeping in this vale of tears. 

" Come, then, our advocate ! and look upon us with those thy 
pitying eyes. And after this our banishment, show us Jesus, the 
blessed fruit of thy womb merciful ! pious ! sweet Virgin 
Mary I" 

Now, who that had never heard of Mary or of Jesus, 

* See the " Encyclical Letter of our most holy Lord Pope Gregory 
XVL," published in 1832. " Let us," he says, " lift up our eyes and 
hatids to the most holy Virgin Mary, who alone has destroyed all 
heresies, &c. 

t Page 319. 



240 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

upon hearing such, a prayer, would suppose or believe 
for a single moment, but that Mary is a Goddess, and 
superior to Jesus. The prayer is made directly to her. 
She is " Queen, mother of mercy; our life, comfort, 
hope!" To her the needy "cry" is " sent up," and 
every "sigh" extorted by suffering in this "vale of 
tears :" and Jesus is the "fruit of her womb," whom 
she will show — to whom conduct in heaven. 

That Jesus was the fruit, or offspring, of Mary in his 
human nature, is clearly revealed to us ; but, in his 
Divine nature, he was her Creator; and as infinitely 
above her as above men, or the reader. If she ought 
to be adored because she gave being, under the Provi- 
dence of God, to his human nature, then, for the same 
reason, His grandfather, after the flesh, and David, and 
all in that line, ought to be adored also. If blood rela- 
tionship to Him deifies, then all were deities. I would 
suggest, therefore, that Eome put in her calendar of 
Gods and Goddesses, all the ancestry of Jesus. Luke 
gives us the male line. And, as the Church receives 
"new light," according to her doctrine of infallibility, 
she can soon make out the female line ! Mary was 
but a woman, possessing our common fallen humanity, 
the depravity " naturally engendered of the offspring 
of Adam ;" whence, then, her divinity or even immacu- 
lateness ? There is no intimation of either in the Scrip- 
tures, but the contrary. Besides, the Saviour clearly 
teaches, that spiritual relations are above natural, and 
that "whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is 
his mother, his sister, his brother." But the tendency 
of Eome is ever to the sensible, the tangible, the material. 

In the hymn, 



practice — idolatry. 241 

"the plaint of the blessed virgin," 

salvation is ascribed more to the tears and mental 
anguish of Mary, when her Son died, than to the blood 
he shed, which only cleanseth from sin. I give several 
stanzas, just as I find them in the " Guide :" 

" Under the world's redeeming wood 
The most afflicted mother stood, 
Mingling her tears with her Son's blood. 

" As that stream'd down from ev'ry part, 
Of all his wounds she felt the smart ; 
What piere'd his body, pierc'd her heart. 

" Who can with tearless eyes look on, 
When such a Mother, such a Son, 
Wounded and gasping, does bemoan ? 

" Oh ! worse than Jewish heart that could, 
Unmoved, see the double flood, 
Of Mary's tears, and Jesus' blood ! 



" Ah ! pious mother, teach my heart, 
Of sighs and tears the holy art, 
And in thy grief to bear a part. 

" That sword of grief, that did pass through 
Thy very soul, ! may it now 
One kind wound on my heart bestow ! 

" Great Queen of sorrows ! in thy train 
Let me a mourner's place obtain, 
With tears to cleanse all sinful stain. 

" Eefuge of sinners ! grant that we 
May tread thy steps ; and let it be 
Our sorrows, not to grieve like thee. 

11 



242 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 



" Now give us sorrow, give us love, 
That, so prepar'd, we may remove 
When call'd to the bless'd seats above ! " 

I will give but two more ; and complete just as they 
stand, on page 341 : 

" HYMN TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN. 

" Hail, Mary ! Queen and Virgin pure, 
With every grace replete ! 
Hail, kind protectress of the poor ! 
Pity our needy state. 

" thou ! who fillest the highest place, 
Next heaven's imperial throne ! 
Obtain for us each saving grace, 
And make our wants thy own. 

" How oft when trouble filPd my breast, 
Or sin my conscience pain'd, 
Through thee I sought for peace and rest, 
Through thee, I peace obtained. 

" Then hence, in all my pains and cares, 
I'll seek for help in thee ; 
E'er trusting through thy powerful prayers, 
To gain eternity ! " 

" ANOTHER. 

" 0, Holy Mother of our God ! 
To thee for help we fly : 
Despise not this our humble pray'r,' 
But all our wants supply. 



" glorious Virgin, ever blest ! 

Defend us from our foes ; 
From threatening dangers set us free, 

And terminate our woes." 



PRACTICE — IDOLATRY. ■ 243 

In these two hymns, every word of which is em- 
phatic, the name of Christ does not once appear ; nor 
is there any allusion to the Scriptural and only true 
doctrine of salvation through his blood. "Intercession" 
"grace" "rest" "help" eternal "gain" are all ascribed 
to Mary, " Mother of God!" She, not Christ, " is all 
in all." Compare the inspired Psalms of David, or the 
pure, lofty, orthodox strains of Watts or Charles Wes- 
ley with them, and how wide the difference ! David 
poured out his soul to Grod as his only Saviour ; then 
in joyous, heavenly strains, praised him as his deliv- 
erer. And then, that the world might know whom he 
loved, whom he adored, and whose he was, with a full 
heart in ecstasy he exclaimed : 

" Whom have I in heaven but Thee ? 
And there is none upon earth I desire beside Thee /" 

Watts in his hymn, which has been poured forth by 
ten thousand times ten thousand tongues, and will be 
till time shall be no more : — 

"Alas ! and did my Saviour bleed ?" 
And Wesley in 

" Depth of mercy ! can there be ?" 
And 

" Come, thou traveller unknown !" 

And indeed in all their hymns sing of Jesus, look to 
Jesus, ascribe their salvation, their all, to Jesus, and 
soar away and mingle their rapturous song of redeem- 
ing love with the millions before the throne, as they 
weave upon the wires of their golden harps the immor- 
tal strain: "Unto him that loved us, and washed us 



244 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us 
kings and priests unto God and his Father — to Him be 
glory and dominion forever and ever !" 

The evidence, then, is complete, the proof perfectly 
indubitable, that the Church of Eome is idolatrous. 
She " adores " the "host," "with that highest worship 
due to the true God,' 7 and this is her u constant usage." 
"The images of Christ, of the "Virgin Mary, and of 
other saints," she "consecrates, and retains, and duly 
worships by kissing them, and with uncovered head boiv- 
ing down before them" in open violation of the second 
command, which she has stricken from the sacred deca- 
logue, or in the one or two instances where she has 
suffered it to remain, has changed its meaning and 
position. She worships saints, angels, and the Virgin 
Mary. She prays to, invocates, and adores them, as if 
they were omnipresent, and almighty to give. The 
Virgin Mary especially is addressed as a Goddess, Queen 
of Heaven ; is invocated — adored — blessings sought 
at her hand, which God only can give — the gratitude of 
the heart poured out to her, and her praises as a deliverer 
celebrated in lofty strains of prose and poetry. 

If all this does not demonstrate that Eome is idola- 
trous, there is an end of moral reasoning — no dogma, 
no fact, the nature of no practice, can be established by 
facts and reasoning. 

The Church of Rome is Intolerant. 

She declares that she holds the only true faith, and 
that her practice is primitive and Apostolic. This she 
has a right to do, if done with a proper spirit. This 
prerogative belongs inherently to every man and all 



PRACTICE — INTOLERANT. 245 

men. All have a right, under God, (I speak in refer- 
ence to relative rights among men,) to hold whatever 
faith they choose, and to practice whatever religious 
ceremonies, or worship as they chose, if not in con- 
travention of the rights of others. But none have a 
right — any kind of right — to anathematize others 
for not holding the same faith and practice. The 
prerogative of anathematizing belongs to God, and 
God only. "Vengeance is MINE; / will repay saith 
the Lord"* He has never delegated this to any man 
or Church. Hence, while Pius IX. has a right, so 
far as all other men are concerned, to believe in 
priestly absolution and transubstantiation, I have an 
equal right to believe that none can forgive sins but 
God only, and that Christ is present only in the holy 
eucharist figuratively, spiritually — and he has no right 
to anathematize me ; I have no right to anathematize 
him. The assumption, therefore, of such a prerogative 
is an assumption of a prerogative of God, and is in 
violation of the meek, forbearing spirit of Jesus ; the 
teachings and practice of the Apostles, and of the laws 
of civil and religious liberty, and is therefore a damning 
sin. To this view Eome heartily assents, where she is 
weak and desires to worm her way into favor ; but 
where she is in the ascendant, or the established Church 
of the realm, she insultingly rejects it. In these United 
States, until she became strong, she prated of freedom 
of conscience ; in Italy, Spain, Austria, &c, she spurns 
it and is intolerant. 

If intolerant in Italy, and elsewhere, where she has 

* Michael dared not bring a railing accusation against the Devil. 
Said he : " The Lord rebuke thee/' Jude, 9 v. 



246 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

power, she ought to be met 7 in her assumptions and 
aggressions in this land of freedom, with a proper, 
faithful spirit of opposition. Nor is this opposition 
intolerance. Else, Luther was intolerant when he 
preached against her corruptions and tyrannical power, 
and trampled her anathemas under his feet, and pro- 
claimed the freedom of the human mind. Else, our 
sires of '76 were intolerant when they hurled back the 
thunders of George III., and declared that they of 
right ought to be free. Tolerance, or, to change the 
phrase a little, the inherent, natural right of every man 
to enjoy civil and religious freedom unmolested by the 
tyranny and anathemas of all others, must necessarily, 
to sustain itself, oppose intolerance. Self-defence is not 
only " the first law of nature," but the imperative duty 
of every man. This is the very essence of civil and 
religious liberty. When man or any body of men, 
under the name of Church or State, assume to lord it 
over others, and make all bow down before them and 
believe as they dictate, or crush them to the earth and 
destroy with fagot and flame, they violate the laws of 
God and man, and must be resisted. This the Eoman 
Catholic Church does. This is the " falling away" from 
Apostolic precept and practice with which I charge her. 
Nearly every article of her faith she enforces with 
an anathema. If any man believe it not, or deny it, 
her intolerant sentence is, u Let him be accursed" ! Nor 
is this empty declamation. It is the fearful penalty 
one pays for the rejection of that which his head and 
heart cannot approve ; a penalty which Eome never 
fails to inflict when and where she has power. The doc- 
trine may be in conflict with the pure rule of faith which 



PRACTICE — INTOLERANT. 247 

God has given us ; it may be absurd and lead to idolatry 
and sin, as transubstantiation ; still it must be believed 
and practiced, upon the pain of eternal damnation ! 

The following excommunication " is to be diligently 
studied by the clergy, and to be solemnly published in 
the Churches once a year, or oftener, and carefully 
taught the people" :• 

" We excommunicate and anathematize, in the name of Almighty- 
God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and by the authority of his 
blessed Apostles, Peter and Paul, and by our own, all Wickliffites, 
Hussites, Lutherans, Calvinists, Huguenots, Anabaptists, and all 
other heretics, by whatsoever name they are called and of whatsoever 
sect they be ; and also all schismatics, and those who withdraw 
themselves, or recede obstinately from the obedience of Eome ; as 
also their adherents, receivers, favorers, and generally, any defend- 
ers of them : together with all who, without the authority of the 
Apostolic See, shall knowingly read, keep, or print any of their 
books which treat on religion, or by or for any cause whatever, 
publicly or privately, on any pretence whatever defend them." 

Give that Church the power, or let her gain the 
ascendency, whose priests and people are imbued with 
the spirit of this anathema, and civil and religious 
liberty are at an end. 

Eicherius,f a Eoman Catholic writer, says : 

" Pope Gregory VII., contrary to the custom used in the Church 
for more than a thousand years, introduced that order : ' That all 
bishops must swear unlimited fidelity and obedience to the Pope.' " 

The following is the oath : 

« i t ]ST N , Bishop elect of the See of N , do 

swear, that from this time henceforth I will be faithful and obedient 

* 63d Constitution of Paul V. t Dr. of the Sorbonne 



248 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

to the blessed Apostle Peter, to the Holy Church of Eome, and to 
our lord the Pope, and his successors canonically appointed. I will, 
to my utmost, defend, increase, and advance the rights, honors, 
privileges, and authority of the holy Eoman Church, of our lord 
the Pope, and of his successors aforesaid. I will not join in any 
consultation, act, or treaty, in which anything shall be plotted to 
the injury of the rights, honor, state, and power of our lord the 
Pope, or of the said Church. I will keep with all my might the 
rules of the holy fathers, (decrees of Councils,) the apostolical de- 
crees, ordinances, disposals, reservations, provisions, and mandates, 
and cause them to be observed by all others under my jurisdiction."* 

11 Heretics j schismatics and rebels to our said lord the 
Pope, and his successors aforesaid, / will, to the utmost 

of my power, PERSECUTE AND DESTROY." 

Every priest takes a similar oath.. 

The oath of the Jesuit, as Jesuitism does in every- 
thing, transcends in intolerance and wickedness all 
others. This oath came to light in the celebrated trial 
of Father Lavelatte, in Paris, in the year 1761, when 
the " Constitutions" of the Society and other holy 
things! were dragged from the secret Councils of in- 
iquity. The existence of such an oath, that the Jesuits 
take this oath, indeed that they take any oath, has been 
denied in this country. But as well might the Jesuits 
deny that Loyola ever lived, or that there ever was an 
Order of Jesuits. Here is the oath : 

" I, A. B., now in the presence of Almighty God, the blessed 
Virgin Mary, the blessed Michael the Archangel, the blessed St. 
John the Baptist, the holy Apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul,f and 

* Ousley, p. 389. This oath is given by other Eoman Catholic and 
Protestant writers, 
t Are'.they omnipresent ? If not, how do they know tney are present ? 



PRACTICE — INTOLERANT. 249 

all the saints and sacred hosts of heaven, and to you my ghostly 
fathers, do declare from my heart, without mental reservation, that 

his Holiness, Pope , is Christ's Yicar General, and is the 

true and only Head of the Catholic or Universal Church through- 
out the earth ; and that by virtue of the Keys of binding and loos- 
ing given to his Holiness by my Saviour, Jesus Christ, he hath power 
to depose heretical Kings, Princes, States, Commonwealths, and Govern- 
ments, all being illegal without his sacred confirmation, and that they 
may safely be destroyed : Therefore, to the utmost of my power, I 
shall and will defend this doctrine, and his Holiness' rights and cus- 
toms, against all usurpers of the heretical (Protestant) authority 
whatsoever : especially against the now-pretended authority and 
Church of England, and all adherents, in regard that they and 
she be usurpal and heretical, opposing the sacred Mother Church of 
Rome. I do renounce and disown any allegiance as due to any 
heretical King, Prince or State named Protestant, or obedience to any 
of their inferior magistrates or officers. I do further declare that 
the doctrine of the Church of England, the Calvinists, Huguenots, 
and others of the name Protestant, to be damnable, and they them- 
selves are damned and to be damned, that will not forsake the same. 
I do further declare that I will help, assist, and advise all or any of his 
Holiness' agents in any place wherever I shall be, in England, Scot- 
land and Ireland, or in any other territory or kingdom I shall come 
to, and do my utmost to extirpate the heretical Protestant's doctrine, and 
to destroy all their pretended powers, regal or otherwise." 55 " I do 
further promise and declare, that notwithstanding I am dispensed 
with to assume any religion heretical, for the propagating of the 
Mother Church's interest, to keep secret and private all her agents' 
councils, from time to time, as they entrust me, and not to divulge, 
directly or indirectly, by word, writing, or in any circumstance 
whatsoever, but to execute all that shall be proposed, given in 
charge, or discovered unto me, by you, my ghostly father, or any 
of this sacred convent. All which I, A. B., do swear by the 
blessed Trinity, and blessed Sacrament, which I am now to receive, 

* The Jesuit is an enemy of, and traitor to any Protestant Govern- 
ment in which he may live. And yet they are welcomed to these 
shores. 

11* 



250 THE GEEAT APOSTASY. 

to perform, and on my part to keep inviolably ; and do call all the 
heavenly and glorious host of heaven to witness these my real inten- 
tions, to keep this my oath. In testimony hereof, I take this most 
holy and blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist ; and witness the 
same with my hand and seal, in the face of this holy convent, this 
— day of Anno Domini ." 

An edition of the Douay Bible was published, with 
notes, at Dublin, in 1816, by Dr. Troy, under the sanc- 
tion of all the " Irish Eoman Catholic prelates and chief 
clergy." " In this work," embracing these notes — (to 
what else could the remark refer, but the notes ?) — "In 
this work can nothing be found, but what is agreeable 
to the doctrine and piety of the Catholic Church," said 
some of the Holy Fathers. Dr. Troy and others, when 
these notes were severely criticised, and their intoler- 
ant, wicked, blood-thirsty character exposed, and pub- 
lic odium was about to overwhelm them, denied that 
they wrote them, or knew anything about them. But 
Mr. Coyne, a Eoman Catholic, who printed the Bible, 
declared that the notes were in the MS. when it came 
into his office ! One thing is certain, the notes were 
printed in the Bible, as published by Dr. Troy, and 
they ivere not written by the printer. And they embody 
the views, the faith, and the feelings of Eoman Catho- 
lics. * 

I give a few of them. On Hebrews v. 7, we have 

* Dr. Milner, in his boasted " End of Controversy," says : " There is 
not, nor can be in the Established Church, or other societies of Pro- 
testants, any apostolic succession of ministry; and, of course, the whole 
work of the intrusive Church, preaching, sacrament, &c, being per- 
formed by mere human hands, is invalid, profane, a perpetual impo- 
sition, and must be without hope of divine acceptance at the bar of 
mercy" I 



PEACTICE — INTOLERANT. 251 

this language: "The translators of the English Pro- 
testant Bible should be abhorred to the depths of hell." 
On Matt. 3 : " The good must tolerate the evil, when 
it is so strong that it cannot be redressed without dan- 
ger or disturbance of the whole Church; otherwise, 
where evil men, be they heretics or other malefactors, (?) 
may be punished and suppressed, without hazard of the 
good, they may, and ought, by public authority, either 
spiritual or temporal, be chastised or executed." On 
John x. 1 : "All Protestant clergy are thieves, murderers, 
and ministers of the devil ; leaders of rebellion against 
the lawful authority of the Catholic priests : they are 
engaged in a damnable revolt against the priests of 
God's Church, which is the bane of our days and coun- 
try." On Mark iii. 12 : "As the devil, acknowledg- 
ing the Son of God, was bid to hold his peace ; there- 
fore heretics' sermons must not be heard — no, though 
they preach the truth. Their prayers and service, 
though ever so good in themselves, are, out of their 
mouths, no better than the howling of wolves." On 
Rev. xi. 6, 20 : " Christian people, bishops especially, 
should have great zeal against heretics, and hate them, 
as God hates them."* Luke ix. 55 : "As the fact 
of Elias was not reprehended," for killing false proph- 
ets, " neither is the Church nor Christian princes blamed 
by God for putting heretics to death." On Hebrews xiii. 
17: "When Eome puts heretics to death, and allows 
their punishment in other countries, their blood is not 

* " Thou shalt not hate thy brother." — Ex. xix. 17. Every man is 
thy brother — " He that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh 
in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth." — 1 John ii. 11. "He 
that loveth not his brother abideth in death." — iii. 14. Who is right- 
John, the God who inspired him, or Rome ? 



252 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

that of saints, nor is it to be any more accounted ot 
than that of thieves, man-killers, or other malefactors, " 
And on Acts xix. 19 : "A Christian " (a Roman Catho- 
lic) " should deface and burn all heretical books. " 

The Bible published by Protestants, or circulated 
by them, papists being judges, is a " heretical book.'' 1 
Hence, they " deface and burn" it. They have burned 
it in this "land of the free; " and when they could not 
do this, they have excluded it from some of the com- 
mon schools, that the minds of the young, reared up 
without light, and a knowledge of the plan of salva- 
tion, might readily and surely receive the impress of 
Eomanism from the lips of priests. This is sapping 
the very foundations of our Republic ; for the Bible is 
the substratum of our Constitution, and of our liberties 
— the palladium of our hopes, temporal and eternal. 
Exclude, deface, burn that, and freedom of thought 
and action will have perished with it. 'Tis true, Ro- 
man Catholics publish the Douay translation of the 
Bible—only in Protestant countries, however, — and 
have expunged or left out these " wicked notes. " But 
this became a necessity, per force of public senti- 
ment and feeling, through Protestant teaching and 
influence. Before the Reformation, for centuries, that 
Church published no Bible in the vernacular tongue 
of any people. And even now there is no Bible pub- 
lished, of which I have any knowledge, except by 
Protestants, in Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, or any 
other living language of any nation or race, wholly 
under Roman Catholic influence. And the Douay 
translation can only be circulated and read under the 
license of a priest! 



PRACTICE — INTOLERANT. 253 

An extract from the life of Dr. Franklin, written by 
himself, will illustrate the doctrine and feelings of 
Rome in reference to this subject: 

" Our humble family had early embraced the reformation. They 
remained faithfully attached during the reign of Queen Mary, when 
they were in danger of being molested on account of their zeal 
against Popery. They had an English Bible, and to conceal it the 
more securely, they conceived the project of fastening it, open, with 
pack-threads, across the leaves, on the inside of the lid of a close- 
stool. When my greatgrand father wished to read to his family, 
he reversed the lid of the close-stool upon his knees, and passed the 
leaves from one side to the other, which were held down on each by 
the pack-thread. One of the children was stationed at the door to 
give notice if he saw the proctor, an officer of the spiritual court, 
make his appearance ; in that case, the lid was restored to its place, 
with the Bible concealed under it as before." 

"Rome never Changes" 

And further, in support of this view, and the propo- 
sition under consideration, I will give "the bull of 
Pius the VII., against Bible Societies, issued June 29, 
1816, to the Archbishop of Gnesen, primate of Poland."* 
This bull was translated and published in England, 
and then in this country, in the " National Intelli- 
gencer," (May 26, 1817,) the " Baltimore American," 
(June 6,) the M National Register," (June 21,) and other 
papers. About its authenticity there can be no doubt. 
I have now before me a copy published by a Roman 
Catholic, accompanied with carefully-prepared reasons 
in vindication of its appearance, and arguments in de- 
fence of its positions and dogmatism. Here it is, ver 
hatim ei literatim :\ 

* Prussian Poland. t The italicising is mostly my own. 



254 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

" Venerable Brother : Health and apostolic benediction ! In 
our last letter to you we promised, very soon, to return an answer 
to yours, in which you have appealed to this holy See, in the name 
of the other bishops of Poland, respecting what are called Bible So- 
cieties, and have earnestly inquired of us what you ought to do in 
this affair. We long since, indeed, wished to comply with your re- 
quest ; but an incredible variety of weighty concerns have so pressed 
upon us on every side, that till this day we could not yield to your 
solicitations. 

" We have been truly shocked at this most crafty device, by which 
the very foundations of Religion are undermined ; and having, be- 
cause of the great importance of the subject, conferred in council 
with our venerable brethren, the Cardinals of the holy Eoman 
Church, we have, with the utmost care and attention, deliberated 
upon the measures proper to be adopted by our pontifical au- 
thority, in order to remedy and abolish this pestilence as far as possi- 
ble. In the meantime, we heartily congratulate you, venerable 
brother, and we commend you again and again in the Lord, as it is 
fit we should, upon the singular zeal you have displayed under cir- 
cumstances so dangerous to Christianity, in having denounced to the 
Apostolic See this defilement of the faith so eminently dangerous to 
souls. And although we perceive that it is not at all necessary to ex- 
cite him to activity who is making haste, since of your own accord 
you have already shown an ardent desire to detect and overthrow 
the impious machinations of these innovators ; yet, in conformity 
with our office, we again and again exhort you, that whatever you 
can achieve by power* provide for by council, or effect by authority, 
you will daily execute with the utmost earnestness, placing yourself 
as a wall for the house of Israel. 

" With this view we issue the present brief, viz. : that we may 
convey to you a signal testimony of our approbation of your ex- 
cellent conduct, and may also endeavor therein still more and more 
to excite your pastoral solicitude and diligence. For the general 
good imperiously requires you to combine all your means and ener- 
gies to frustrate the plans which are prepared by its enemies for the 
destruction of our most holy religion, whence it becomes an episco- 

* That's the motto of Rome, " achieve by power." 



PRACTICE — INTOLERANT. 255 

pal duty that you first of all expose the wickedness of this nefarious 
scheme, as you have already done so admirably, to the view of the 
faithful, and openly publish the same, according to the rules pre- 
scribed by the Church, with all the erudition and wisdom which you 
possess, namely : ' that the Bible printed by heretics is to be numbered 
among other prohibited books, conformably to rules of the Index (NTos. 
2 and 3), for it is most palpably evident from experience, that the 
Holy Scriptures, when circulated in the vulgar tongue, have, through 
the temerity of men, produced more harm than benefit.' (?) (Rule IY.) 
And this is more to be dreaded in times so depraved, when our" [po- 
pery is in danger from pure Bible truth] " holy religion is assailed 
from every quarter with great cunning and effect," [giving the Bible 
to the people,] " and the most grievous wounds are inflicted" [by the 
Bible] " on the Church. It is, therefore, necessary to adhere to the 
salutary decree of the Congregation of the Index, (June 13, '53,) 
that no versions of the Bible in the vulgar tongue be permitted, except 
such as are approved by the apostolic See, or published with anno- 
tations extracted from the writings of the holy fathers of the 
Church. 

" We confidently hope that, in these turbulent circumstances, the 
Poles will give the clearest proofs of their attachment to the relig- 
ion of their ancestors ; and by our care, as well as that of the 
other prelates of thi3 kingdom, whom, on account of the faith, we 
congratulate abundantly, justify the opinion we have entertained of 
them. 

" It is moreover necessary that you should transmit to us as soon 
as possible the Bible which Jacob Whick published in the Polish 
language, with a commentary, as well as a copy of the edition of it 
lately put forth, without those annotations taken from the writings 
of the holy fathers of our Church, or other learned Catholics, with 
your opinion upon it ; that thus, from the collating them together, 
it may be ascertained, after mature investigation, tha,t certain errors 
ne insidiously concealed therein, and that we may pronounce our 
judgment on this affair for the preservation of the true faith. 

" Continue, therefore, venerable brother, to pursue this truly 
vious course upon which you have entered, viz., diligently to fight 
the battles of the Lord for the sound doctrine, and warn the people 
intrusted to your care, that they fall not into the snares which are 



256 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

prepared for their everlasting ruin. The Church demands this from 
you as well as from other bishops, whom our rescript equally con- 
cerns, and we most anxiously expect it, that the deep sorrow we feel 
on account of this new species of tares which an adversary has so 
abundantly sown, may by this cheering hope be somewhat alle- 
viated ; and we always very heartily invoke the choicest blessings 
upon yourself and your fellow-bishops for the good of the Lord's 
flock, which we impart to you and them by our apostolic benedic- 
tion. 

" Given at Rome, at St. Mary the Greater, June the 29th, 1816, 
the 17th year of our pontificate. " Pius P. P. YJI." 

Among other reasons in vindication of this singular 
document, the writer referred to, gives the following : 

" It exercises but a right always acknowledged by the Catholics 
in their pastors, to control and regulate the business of translating, 
adding notes, printing and circulating the Divine Book, as commit- 
ted to their special care, with a view of preserving at all times the 
integrity of the text and fidelity of versions, and also the proper 
intelligence of the inspired sense which they consider as one and 
unchangeable." 

Yes, they would " control and regulate the business 
of translating, adding notes, printing and circulating 
the Divine Book." They do control it in all countries 
where Eome holds undisputed sway, and never " trans- 
late," " print," or " circulate" it among the people ; " for 
it is most palpably evident," says the infallible head, 
"from experience" (Rome's, not that of the souls of 
men), " that the Holy Scriptures, when circulated in 
the vulgar tongue, have, through the temerity of men, 
produced more harm than good" — to Rome. Is Roman 
Catholicism, then, the religion of the Bible ? 

" Doing this," the writer continues, " the Catholic elergy may be 
considered, by liberal minds, (!) as showing in their own way their 
best respect and zeal for the Scriptures, the existence and right 



PEACTICE — INTOLERANT. 257 

interpretation and true sense of which do nort seem to them likely 
to subsist in the long course of time, if entirely left to the care of 
unauthorized editors" ! 

But the particular version, the circulation of which 
called forth this bull, was translated and printed, as I 
have shown, by a priest, a Jesuit. He was not allowed 
to circulate it — to " sow this new specks of tares. 11 Both 
the priest and the Bible were put down. Besides, the 
Bible Society is anxious, and will most gladly circulate 
in Boman Catholic countries, the Douay Bible, or any 
of their own translations, if they would make them in 
the vulgar tongue of any people. We are not afraid 
of the " Divine Book." Give us even Boman Catholic 
translations, and throw open the doors in Spain, Italy, 
Austria, etc., and we will most gladly enter and " sow" 
broad-cast, not tares, but wheat. 

11 Care of unauthorized editors 11 ! If by this is^meant 
that the " editors" and committees on revisions of 
the Bible Societies are illiterate and incompetent, or 
that they have no right, no inherent or conventional 
and divinely-vouchsafed right, to handle, keep, trans- 
late, print, and circulate the " lively oracles," given to 
every man " as a lamp to his feet and a light to his path- 
way" — it is most false. If the writer meant that they 
are "unauthorized" by the Pope, or priests, it is true ; 
and the anathemas the latter hurl at all engaged in this 
business, prove the intolerance and tyranny of Borne. 
Nothing must exist, nothing be done, without her 
sanction. 

But, do " authorized editors," the infallible Pope 
himself, and priests, correctly translate, and publish 
without error, the Holy Scriptures, so that the " true 



258 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

sense subsists in the long course of time" ? Translate 
and publish, in the vulgar tongue, with one or two 
exceptions, they do not. But the Vulgate, the Latin 
version, what of the "true sense" or errors of that? 

The Council of Trent decreed that the Holy Scrip- 
tures in the Vulgate version, were the inspired, infalli- 
ble will of God. That had already undergone one or 
two changes since the days of Jerome, who had trans- 
lated it from Hebrew and Greek into Latin, then the 
language of the common people. After the decree had 
passed, a very serious difficulty arose : the Vulgate 
was known to je erroneous in some things. This was 
admitted. Some of the prelates and divines desired, 
urged, that errors and all be considered as embraced 
in the decree. One of them thus spoke out: " Either 
God has failed in his promise of keeping his Church 
from error, or it is impossible that he can have left her 
to make use of an erroneous translation."* No, no, the 
eternal dogma must be maintained, " the Church cannot 
err" and therefore the errors in the Vulgate, right 
before their eyes, which she had used, were no errors ! 
Others maintained that a new, faultless version was 
needed. This opinion prevailed. A decree passed 
that a new one should be made. " There was much 
wisdom in this," says Bungener; "but it made the 
preceding decree only all the more strange." 

" In consequence of this last decision, one naturally desires to 
know through what process it passed. 

"A commission had been named, which did nothing. Toward 
the close of the Council, Pius IV. appointed another, but at Rome. 
Pius V. renewed it, and accelerated its labors. Twelve years 

* As a rule of faith, tradition they decreed to be of equal force. 



PKACTICE — INTOLERANT. 259 

afterward, at the accession of Sixtus-Quintus, the work had hardly 
commenced, and that impetuous pontiff began to lose patience. He 
made it his own affair, and, at the commencement of 1589, announced 
by a bull, that the work was drawing to a close. The new Vul- 
gate was printed under his own eyes at the Vatican, and he himself 
revised the proofs. ' We have corrected them with our own hand, 1 he 
says in the preface. ' The work appeared, and it was impossible/ 
says Hug,* ' that it should not have given occasion for criticism and 
pleasantry. Many passages were found, particularly in the Old 
Testament, covered with slips of paper, on which new corrections had 
been printed ; others were scratched out, or merely corrected with a 
pen. * * * In fine, the copies issued were far from all presenting 
the same corrections" ! 

Was Sixtus-Quintus, the infallible Eoman pontiff, 
an authorized editor? Did the "true sense' 1 of the 
" Divine Book" "subsist" in any of the copies of the 
edition, the proofs of which he "corrected with his own 
hand"? and did it "subsist" in each of the dissimilar 
copies that went out with different pen and type cor- 
rections? "Unauthorized editors," indeed — that the 
reason why the holy indignation of Pius VII. is hurled 
with terrible anathemas against the Bible and Bible 
Societies ! No, no ! The truth is, this is a flimsy ex- 
cuse to cover up Eome's intolerance and real oppo- 
sition to the Bible ; a miserable fallacy, a store of 
which she constantly keeps on hand, or can manufac- 
ture at pleasure, which every one who is at all read in 
ecclesiastical history, and especially the history of the 
Bible, knows full well. Why, this is but one of 
five bulls which have been issued by four different 
Popes, against the Bible and Bible Societies, within the 
last fifty years. 

* A Roman Catholic writer. 



260 THE GEE AT APOSTASY. 

Now, let any patriot carefully read and weigh the 
language of this brief — this law of the Eoman Catholic 
Church — its tone, its spirit, the object it designs to ac- 
complish, and the calm, ingenious, fallacious vindica- 
tion of its publication and doctrine by an American 
citizen, and tell me if she is not the bitter, uncompro- 
mising enemy of the Bible, and of civil and religious 
liberty, and if there is not danger from her growing 
numbers? 

Finally, the chief dignitaries and writers in this 
Church, even in these United States, have distinctly 
admitted, nay, asserted, that she is intolerant, and that 
if she gains the ascendency in this land, liberty of con- 
science — freedom of thought and action, are at an end. 

Bishop Kenric says: 

" Heresy and unbelief are crimes" [i. e., Protestantism]. "And in 
Christian countries, as in Italy and Spain, for instance, where all 
the people are Catholic, and where the Catholic religion is an essen- 
tial part of the law of the land, they will be" [are now] " punished 
as crimes." 

The Bishop of St. Louis says : 

" Protestantism of every kind Catholicity inserts in her catalogue 
of mortal sins ; she endures it when and where she must ; but she 
hales it, and directs all her energies to effect Us destruction. If the 
Catholics ever gain, which they surely will do, an immense nu- 
merical MAJORITY, RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN THIS COUNTRY IS AT AN 
END." 

The Bishop of Pittsburg, O'Connor, asserts that — 

"Religious liberty is merely endured until the opposite can bo 
carried into execution without peril to the Catholic world." 

The Catholic Keview responds : 

,u No rights for Protestants, or anybody else, except Catholics." 



PRACTICE — INTOLERANT. 261 

Brownson, in his Beview, October, 1852, re-affirms 
the above, and thus teaches : 

" The liberty of heresy" [Protestantism] " and unbelief is not a 
natural right. All the rights the sects have, or can have, are 
derived from the State, and rest on expediency. As they have in 
their character of sects, hostile to the true religion [Popery] , no 
rights under the law of Nature or the law of God, they are neither 
wronged nor deprived of liberty, if the State refuses to grant them 
any rights at air I 

There is patriotism for you — there is Eomanism! I 
have said, and I deliberately say it again — and I would 
throw into it all the emphasis of which I am capable — 

that ANY MAN, OR BODY OF MEN, IMBUED WITH THE 
SPIRIT OF POPERY, ARE INCAPABLE OF REPUBLICANISM. 

The history of that Church for a thousand years, and 
everything of her present, demonstrate this beyond all 
doubt. That some Eoman Catholics in name — and in 
part, in practice-^just as some Mormons and Moham- 
medans, despite their systems, are patriots and true re- 
publicans, I believe and unhesitatingly admit. But 
they are few. 

" The Shepherd of the Valley," the organ of the Eoman 
Catholics in the great valley of the Mississippi, thus 
gives us a glimpse at the heart of Eome, and would 
save me and the world the trouble of writing a single 
line to demonstrate that she is intolerant. Ponder and 
weigh well the following : 

" Eeligious liberty, in the sense of a liberty possessed by every 
man to choose his own religion, is one of the most wicked delusions 
ever foisted upon this age by the father of all deceit. The very 
name of liberty — except in the sense of a permission to do certain 
definite acts" — such as Eome commands — " ought to be banished from 



262 THE GEE AT APOSTASY. 

the very domain of religion. It is neither more nor less than a 
falsehood. No man has a right to choose his religion. None but an 
atheist can uphold the principles of religious liberty. Shall I, there- 
fore, fall in with this abominable delusion ? Shall I foster that 
damnable doctrine, that Socinianism, and Calvinism, and Anglican- 
ism, and Judaism — are not every one of them mortal sins like 
murder and adultery ? Shall I hold out hopes to my erring Pro- 
testant brother, that I will not meddle with his creed if he will not 
meddle with mine ? Shall I tempt him to forget that he has no 
more right to his religious views than he has to my purse, or my 
house, or my life-blood. No. Catholicism is the most intolerant 
of creeds. It is intolerance itself ; for it is the truth itself. (!) 
We might as rationally maintain, that a sane man has a right to 
believe that two and two do not make four, as this theory of religious 
liberty. Its impiety is only equalled by its absurdity " ! * 

The evidence, then, is overwhelming, that the Church 
of Eome is intolerant. She has, therefore, " fallen 
away" from the gentle teaching, heavenly spirit, and 
holy practice of the Gospel. 

" Master," said the disciples, "we saw one casting 
out devils in thy name, and he followeth not us, and 
we forbade him, because he followeth not us" "Forbid 
him not," was the emphatic reply of the loving, gentle 
Jesus. 



The Church of Rome is persecuting and blood-thirsty. 

This is another very grave charge, and should not 
be entertained, for a single moment, without the most 
clear and irrefragable proof. Such proof is now before 
me, and I submit it to the consideration of the candid 
reader, without the least doubt as to his decision. 

* This originally appeared in "The Rambler," in England. 



PRACTICE — PERSECUTION. 263 

In the oath, that every bishop takes, already given, 
we have this language : 

"Heretics, schismatics, and rebels to our said lord, the 
Pope, and his successors, I will to the utmost of my 
power persecute and destroy." 

By a decree of the Council of Constance, the bishop 
is compelled to do this, or forfeit his dignity, and perhaps 
his life. The fourth Council of Lateran passed a similar 
decree: "If any bishop be negligent in purging his 
diocese of heresy, he shall be deprived ©f his episcopal 
dignity." The decretals of the Popes command the 
same, with a similar sanction. The Council of Trent 
says, " when it can be done with safety' 11 ! 

The priest's oath is to the same effect ; for he swears 
to obey the canon law. 

The oath of the Jesuit, as we have seen, "breathes 
out threatening and slaughter" to all "of the name 
Protestant." "I do furthermore declare, that I will 
help, and do my utmost, to extirpate the heretical Protestant 
doctrine, and to destroy all their pretended powers." 

The Pope takes a solemn oath "to uphold," or 
"defend the supremacy, power, and dignity of the 
holy apostolic See;" to "enforce the faith maintained in 
general Councils," and " depose and deprive sovereign 
princes of their dignity and honors," if they do not 
carry out the persecuting edicts — obey and execute the 
mandates of Kome.* Furthermore, Urban II., Alex- 
ander VI., Lucius- III., Innocents III. and IV., Clement 
VII., Honorius III., Martin V., Paul IV., and scores 
of others, infallible though they were, have sent out 

* The Councils of Constance, Pisa, Basil, Lateran, &c, passed such 
decrees. 



264 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

bulls the most relentless persecuting, and cruel, against 
the Albigenses, Waldenses, Huguenots; in a word, 
against all who have had consciences not utterly seared, 
and minds and independence to think. Urban decided, 
that the person who, inflamed with zeal for Catholicism, 
" should slay any of the excommunicated, was not guilty 
of murder" Lucius anathematized them and all their 
protectors, and unceremoniously consigned them to 
condign vengeance. Innocent sanctioned the sentence 
of Frederic, to burn them alive wherever found; which 
sentence emanated from the decrees of Councils, com- 
pelling kings and rulers to purge their dominions of all 
heresy. And Innocent, and others, granted a plenary 
indulgence — a full pardon and endless bliss, to the magis- 
trates and warriors — the brutal tools and soldiers who 
went forth to butcher and burn. 

But to refer to all the decrees of Popes, anathematiz- 
ing Protestants and commanding them to be imprisoned 
and burned or buried alive ; and their earnest words of 
approval of kings, dukes, generals, bishops and priests, 
for their zeal and success in putting to death, or killing 
by inches, with most cruel tortures, their subjects and 
fellow-beings for religion's sake, were to transcribe a 
tithe of the canon law of Eome. 

In the Creed of Pius IV. ; to which every Eoman 
Catholic is compelled to subscribe, without which, 
indeed, he could not be a Eomanist, we have this 
language: 

" I acknowledge the holy Catholic and apostolic Roman Church, 
the mother and mistress of all Churches ; and I promise and swear 
true obedience to the Bishop of Eome, the successor of St Peter, 
the prince of the apostles, and vicar of Jesus Christ. 



PRACTICE — PERSECUTION. 265 

" I also profess, and undoubtedly receive, all other things, deliv- 
ered, defined, and declared by the sacred canons and general Coun- 
cils, and particularly by the holy Council of Trent ; and likewise, I 
also condemn, reject, and anathematize all things contrary thereto ; 
and all heresies whatsoever, condemned and anathematized by the 
Church. This true Catholic faith, out of which none can be saved, 
which I now freely profess, and truly hold, I promise, vow, and swear 
most constantly to hold and profess the same, whole and entire, with 
God's assistance, to the end of my life."* 

What, then, are the decrees of Councils, and the canon 
laws, in reference to persecution ? — decrees and laws in 
existence and full force now." 

" The Council of Oxford, in 1160," says Edgar, " condemned 
more than thirty of the Waldenses who had emigrated from Gascony 
to England, and consigned these unhappy sufferers to the secular 
arm. Henry the Second ordered them, men and women, to be pub- 
licly whipped, branded on the cheek with a red hot iron, and driven 
half naked out of the city ; while all were forbid to grant these 
wretched people hospitality, or consolation. None, therefore, showed 
the condemned the least pity. The winter raged in all its severity, 
and the Waldenses in consequence perished of cold and hunger." 

" The Councils of Tours, Lavour, Albi, Narbonne, Beziers, and 
Tolosa, issued various enactments of outlawry and extermination 
against the Albigenses and Waldenses. An inquisitorial deputation 
of the clergy and laity was commissioned for the detection of heresy 
and its partisans. The barons who through fear or favor should 
neglect the work of destruction, forfeited their estates, which were 
transferred to the active and ruthless agents of extirpation." 

" The council of Tolosa, in 1229, waged war against the Bible, as 
well as against heresy. The sacred Synod strictly forbade the laity 
to possess the books of the Old and New Testament in the vernacu- 
lar idiom."f 

The third, the fourth, and the fifth General Councils 

*This is given in the " Guide to Heaven" for Kepublicans. 
. fThe "two witnesses ,? were murdered. 

12 



266 THE GEE AT APOSTASY. 

of Lateran passed decrees that " breathed out threaten- 
ings and slaughter " to all heretics, schismatics, and 
suspected persons. They were declared to be beyond 
the pale of Almighty goodness — without the covenanted 
mercies of God, and were consigned at once to the re- 
morseless cruelties of the Inquisition. 

The General Council of Constance, in 1418, with Mar- 
tin V. at its head, (surely the decrees of that Council are 
infallible, and therefore eternally unchangeable) con- 
firmed the persecuting decrees of the Lateran, and in- 
creased, if possible, their rigor, and turned them against 
the WicklifTites, Hussites, &c. These poor Christians 
were outlawed, imprisoned, burned, denied Christian 
burial, and their property confiscated. 

Trent put its infallible seal of blood to all, but added, 
" where it can be clone with safety" ! The decrees of 
Popes breathe the same spirit, and teach and enforce 
the same thing. 

The clergy, therefore, swearing on the holy evangel- 
ists, as they do, in the most solemn manner, " to hold 
and teach cdl that the sacred canons and General Councils 
have delivered, defined and declared" what are we to 
think of them ? What are they ? We cannot escape 
the conclusion — there may be, are, doubtless, excep- 
tions — that the priest to-day is just as the priest was 
under Innocent and others in the Waldensian butchery ; 
under Gregory XIII. ; in the slaughter of St. Bartholo- 
mew's, and in the bloody persecutions under " bloody 
Mary." And the laity who, in the Creed of Pius IV., 
now nearly three hundred years old, "promise and 
swear true obedience to the bishop of Rome, and to receive 
all things delivered, defined and declared by the sacred 



PEACTICE — PERSECUTION. 267 

canons and General Councils, and particularly the holy 
Council of Trent," — what are they? God forbid ! that 
I should reach a false conclusion in an issue so delicate, 
so deeply involving a large body of my fellow-beings ; 
but as I look at these persecuting and blood-thirsty 
decrees of Councils, and of Popes — the canon laws of 
Eome — and have before my eyes, on the indelible 
pages of history, the massacres to which they have led, 
which, but for them, never would have disgraced hu- 
manity and the name of the pure religion of the inof- 
fensive Jesus ; and then at the solemn oath that priests 
and people take, to receive, believe in, hold and teach 
them ; and then at the emphatic announcement of the 
infallible Pope, that the holy Eoman Catholic Church 
cannot err, that she is unchangeable — what am I to 
think ? 

The conclusion, to my mind, is clear and irresistible, 
that the Church of Eome to-day is persecuting and 
blood-thirsty. She is not in this country, for she has 
not the power; it could not "be done safely." 

The decrees of Councils and of Popes commanded 
kings and emperors to purge their dominions of heresy. 
A failure to do so, where Eome held undisputed sway, 
forfeited their crown and dominions. Hence edict 
after edict against the Waldenses, and all Protestants, 
have been sent forth by the kings of France, the em- 
perors of Germany, the kings of England, of Spain, 
&c, for the destruction of thousands of their inoffens- 
ive subjects, whose only crime was, they loved their 
Bible, and would not acknowledge the supremacy of 
the Pope, and worship images and saints. Armies o£ 
the Church followed in hot haste to butcher and to burn. 



26S THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

Frederic, Emperor of Germany, in 1224, issued no 
less than four edicts against the Waldenses and Albi- 
genses. He unceremoniously sentenced them alive to 
the flames and their property to confiscation. Princes, 
and governors, and magistrates were to execute the 
edicts in all their jurisdictions, or forfeit their honors 
and wealth to the champions of the Church. " This," 
says Du Pin, "was the first edict that made heretical 
opinions a capital offence." Oh ! that it had been the 
last. 

Louis XV. of France sent out, as late as 1724, in 
an imperial law, these commands and decrees : 

" That the Catholic religion alone be professed in our kingdom, 
forbidding all our subjects, of what state, quality, or condition soever, 
to profess any other religion, or assemble for that purpose in any 
place, under any pretence whatever, on pain, if men, to be condemned 
to the galleys forever, and, if women, to be shorn and shut up forever 
in such places as our judges shall think proper, with confiscation of 
goods. 

" We order that all such preachers as have convened assemblies 
not according to the said Catholic religion, or shall have preached, 
or discharged any other functions therein, shall he punished with 
death.'' 1 

Similar laws are now in full force in Portugal, Spain, 
Austria, and Italy, and the dominions of the Pope, 
except Sardinia. The Church of Eome is their parent, 
godmother, nurse and life-blood. Break her power 
and free the millions that groan beneath her yoke, and 
such laAvs would not stand a single year. 

The theologians of Eome have been imbued with 
the spirit of persecution, and have taught that heretics 
may be justly killed. Thomas Aquinas says : " Here- 
tics may not only be excommunicated but justly killed. 



PRACTICE — PERSECUTION. 269 

Such, the Church consigns to the secular arm, to be 
exterminated from the world by death." Vasques, 
Ghiido, Dominic, Bellarmine, Dens, and almost an in- 
numerable company, teach this doctrine. Bellarmine 
and Dens are a little careful and prudent in reference 
to the circumstances and effects of putting to death. 
It must be effected with safety to Mother Church. 
The poor Huguenot and Protestant, in their estimation, 
deserve death and hell, but there is a way and a time 
to destroy them, which religion (Roman Catholic, of 
course) dictates must not be overlooked. 

Now, the works of these theologians are the stand- 
ard works of the Church ; they are studied by the 
priest, and kept and read by the laity. 

Let us examine, then, the practical workings of these 
decrees of Councils and of Popes, of Roman Catholie 
sovereigns and governors, and of the teachings of 
theologians : 

" Shall we begin with the v7aldenses ? The history of this people 
lies before me. Cooped up in secluded valleys, at the foot of the 
Alps, they are supposed to be the descendants of Christians who 
sought refuge from the barbarian hordes that ravaged Italy during 
the decline of the Roman empire. They were a people simple, in- 
dustrious, pious, scriptural in their faith and worship, and most 
unoffending in their conduct to all men. In two things they were 
as immovable as the Alps : they would not give up their Bibles, 
nor acknowledge the claims of the Pope. These were their only 
offences, and for these they were declared heretics, and the blood- 
hounds of Rome, the bishops and Inquisitors, were let loose on them. 
Two vagabond and brutal monks were sent from Rome to see that 
justice was meted out to the heretics. They deposed the kind 
bishops of the district for permitting the heresy, and substituted 
wolves in their place. Castelnau, a man of cruel heart, was sent as 
legate. Raymond of Toulouse was excommunicated because he re- 



270 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

fused to join in the bloody crusade, but was made finally to consent 
by the cruel treatment of the Pope and Castelnau* About three 
hundred thousand men were let loose upon this people, to punish 
them for the sin of worshipping God as did their fathers and the 
Apostles. The first outburst of their fury was on the town of 
Beziers, containing about sixty thousand persons. The legate gave 
up the people to slaughter and the town to pillage and flames. 

" ' But how,' said an officer, ' can we distinguish the Catholic 
from the heretic V And what was the reply of the atrocious Legate 
Castlenau ? It is known, to the confusion of Borne, in all the earth : 
'Kill all ; the Lord will know his own /' And every being was slain, 
and the town was consumed by fire ! 

"And this was only the beginning of sorrows. For nearly fifty 
years was the carnage continued. Battle followed battle — city was 
burned after city — valley was entered after valley — until the rugged, 
yet fair heritage of this pious and simple people was converted into 
a howling wilderness — until a million of their number, under the 
sabre and tread of the minions of Popery, were made to bite the 
dust ! After reciting a list of barbarities, Morland, the high-minded 
envoy of Cromwell to Turin, thus addressed the Duke of Savoy : 
1 What need I mention more, though I could reckon up very many 
cruelties of the same kind, if I were not astonished at the very 
thought of them. If all the tyrants of all times and ages were alive 
again, they would be ashamed when they should find that they had 
contrived nothing, in comparison with these things, that might be re- 
puted barbarous and inhuman. Heaven itself seems astonished with 
the crimes of dying men, and the very earth to blush, being discolored 
with the gore-blood of so many innocent persons.' And all the guilt 
of this enormous barbarity lies on the soul of the Papal Church."* 

" Lavour was taken by storm in 1211. Aimeric, the Governor, 
was hanged on a gibbet, and Girrardahis lady was thrown into a well, 
and overwhelmed with stones. All the citizens were mangled without 
discrimination, in promiscuous carnage. Four hundred were burned 
alive, to the extreme delight of the Crusaders." Even a Koman 
Catholic historian says he " shudders while he relates such horrors." 

* Also by his sovereign, who had threatened to confiscate his estates. 
t Rev. Dr. Murray's Letters to Chief Justice Taney. 



PRACTICE — PERSECUTION. 271 

" Languedoc, a country flourishing and cultivated, was wasted by 
these desolators. Its plains became a desert. A hundred thousand 
Albigenses, it is said, fell in one day ; and their bodies were heaped 
together and burned. Detachments of soldiers were dispatched in 
every direction to demolish houses, destroy vineyards, and ruin the 
hopes of the husbandman. The females were defiled. The march 
of the Holy Warriors was marked by the flames of burning houses, 
the screams of violated women, and the groans of murdered men."* 

"All this barbarity was perpetrated in the name of 
religion."* The Pope proclaimed the Holy War, as 
it was called ; the clergy sung a hymn in praise to God 
for their victories ; and Mariana called the massacre 
"the visible judgment of heaven." The Church tri- 
umphed. 

From 1549 to 1562, at intervals, Henry of France 
persecuted and put to death, in the most cruel man- 
ner, the Waldenses — that people will surely have a 
bright martyr's crown— Lutherans, and Huguenots. 
Among the "Waldenses, twenty-four towns were again 
destroyed. The citizens were butchered and burned. 

" The massacre was so appalling," says Edgar, " that it excited 
the horror even of Gonfridus, the Roman historian of these horrid 
transactions. The men, women and children, in general, at the ap- 
proach of the hostile army, fled to the adjoining woods and moun- 
tains. * * * Many of the weeping mothers carried their infants 
in cradles on their arms ; while the woods and mountains re-echoed 
their groans and lamentations. These were pursued and immolated by 
the sword of Popish persecution, which never knew pity. * * * Five 
hundred women were thrown into a bam, which was then set on fire ; 
and when any leaped from the windows, they were received on the 
points of spears. The rest were consumed. * * * The women 
were subject to the most brutal insults. Girls were snatched from 
. the arms of their mothers, violated, and afterwards treated with the 

* Edgar's Variations. 



272 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

most shocking inhumanity. The champions of the faith forced the 
dying women, whose offspring had been sacrificed in their pres- 
ence." **■#■■« The Pope and his Court exulted" at this suc- 
cess. " The satisfaction which was felt at the extirpation of Wai- 
densianism was," says G-onfridus, " in proportion to the scandal 
caused by that heresy in the Church." The friends of the Papacy, 
therefore, according to the same author, " reckoned the fire and 
sword well employed. Paul TV. made the President, Oppeda, the 
leader of the persecution, Count Palatine and Knight of St. John ; 
and he was styled the defender of the faith, the protector of the 
faithful, and the hero of Christianity." 

" The massacre of Orange, in 1562, was attended with 
the same horrors. The. Italian army sent by Pope 
Pius IV., was commanded by Serbillon, and slew man, 
woman and child in indiscriminate slaughter. " Some 
were killed with the sword, some thrown from racks, 
some roasted over a slow fire. Men and women were 
mutilated in so horrible a manner that modesty for- 
bids to mention !* 

The massacre of the Huguenots on the 24th of 
August, 1572, known as the massacre of St. Bartholo- 
mew's day, excels everything, perhaps, in the annals 
of history for cold-blooded atrocity. It was planned 
and executed in the name of religion. It was insti- 
gated and consummated by the Church of Eome, whose 
joy was excessive when the inhuman work was done. 

The Huguenots, or Protestants of France, had be- 
come numerous, and, as the advocates of religious 
liberty, of the circulation of the Scriptures and the 
freedom of conscience, had become formidable to 
Eome, she determined to put them down. The night 
of the 24th of August was selected for the wholesale 

* So eays a French historian, Varillas. 



PRACTICE — PERSECUTION. 273 

butchery. The history, "the facts," says Edgar, "have 
been detailed with great impartiality by Bossuet, 
Daniel, Davila, Thuanus and Mezeray." The queen 
laid this plan, which had been two years preconcerted, 
for the extinction of heresy. The execution was in- 
trusted to the Duke of Guise, who was distinguished 
by his inhumanity and hatred of the Eeformation. 
The Duke, on the occasion, was aided by the soldiery, 
the populace, and the king. The military and the 
people attached to Komanism thirsted for the blood of 
the Huguenots. His most Christian majesty, Charles 
IX. ; attacked in person his unresisting subjects with 
a gun, and shouted with all his might, kill ! kill ! One 
man — if he deserve the name — boasted of having, in 
one night, killed a hundred and fifty, and another of 
having slain four hundred. 

" The tocsin, at midnight, tolled the signal of destruction. The 
assailants spared neither old nor young, man nor woman. The car- 
nage lasted seven days. Mezeray reckons the killed in Paris, during 
this time, at 5,000, Bossuet at more than 6,000, and Davila at 
10,000. The Seine was covered with the dead that floated on its 
surface, and the city was one great butchery, and flowed with human 
blood. The court was heaped with the slain, on which the king 
and queen gazed, not with horror, but with delight. The king went 
to see the body of Admiral Ooligny, which was dragged by the 
populace through the streets ; and remarked in unfeeling witticism, 
that ' the smell of a dead enemy was agreeable. ' 

" The tragedy was not confined to Paris, but extended, in gene- 
ral, through the French nation. Special messengers were, on the 
preceding day, dispatched in all directions, ordering a general 
massacre of the Huguenots. The carnage, in consequence, was 
made through nearly all the provinces, and especially in Meaux, 
Troyes, Orleans, Nevers, Lyons, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Kouen. 
Davila estimates the slain at 40,000, and Sully at 70,000. 



274 THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

" Tho reason of this waste of life was enmity to heresy or Pro- 
testantism. A few, indeed, suggested the pretence of conspiracy. 
But this, even Bossuet grants, every person knew to be a mere pre- 
tence. The populace, tutored by the priesthood, accounted them- 
selves, in shedding heretical blood, ' the agent3 of divine justice/ 
and engaged ' in doing God service.' * * * The king, accom- 
panied with the queen and his court, went to mass, and returned 
solemn thanks for the glorious victory obtained over heresy. He 
ordered medals to be coined to perpetuate its memory. A medal 
accordingly was struck for the purpose with this inscription, 
' Piety Excited Justice.' " 

" The carnage was approved by the Pope and the 
Eoman court. The Pope went in procession to the 
Church of St. Louis, to render thanks to God for the 
happy victory." He had a medal struck to com- 
memorate the, to him, glorious event. On one side 
of the medal was the image of the Pope; on the 
other "Hugnatorum strages, 1572." "The slaughter of 
the Huguenots" "A picture of the massacre was added 
to the embellishments of the Vatican," says Eev. Dr. 
Murray, u to commemorate to all ages the triumph of 
the Church over her enemies. Upon that picture I 
have gazed with mine own eye3 in the ante-room of 
the Sistine ; and if Eome has changed her principles 
on persecution, why permit that picture to perpetuate 
her shame ?" 

" Shall we next consider the Irish St. Bartholomew of 1641? 
The chapter is a bloody one. Fired by their priests and by the 
popish gentry whose property had been confiscated during preceding 
disturbances, a plan was concerted, to which the perfidious Charles 
was no stranger, to cut off the Protestants of the island. A chief 
actor in the bloody tragedy was Ever McMahon, Eomish bishop of 
Down, who was true to his oath, ' to persecute and fight against 
heretics to- the utmost in his power.' Bad as was that of France, 



PRACTICE — PERSECUTION. 275 

the Irish Bartholomew was worse. I shudder while I quote from 
histories before me some of the narratives connected with this trag- 
edy. On the Sabbath before the commencement of the massacre, 
the priests gave the wafer to the people, and sent them out with an 
exhortation to kill the Protestants and seize their property, as a 
certain preservative against the pains of purgatory ! A company 
of nearly one hundred, men, women and children, were driven upon 
the ice on Lough Erne ; having pushed them as far as they could 
go in safety, they flung the infants, torn from their mothers' arms, 
toward the point where the ice was weakest, and in seeking to res- 
cue them all perished save two. Women were stripped naked and 
sent into the woods — to perish. Many were sportfully drowned ; 
many hung ; many stabbed to death ; many boiled and roasted ; 
many were hewn to pieces ; many had their bellies ripped up and 
their bowels torn out ; many were driven into houses and were 
burned in them ; many were torn to pieces with dogs ; and, in some 
cases, one end of the intestines was tied to a tree, and the person 
was driven round the tree until his bowels were all torn out ! 
The account of the numbers who thus cruelly perished varies ; but 
some judicious historians say that it could not be less than 200,000. 
Of this awful massacre Sir William Jones says : ' If we look into 
the sufferings of the first Christians under the cruel tyranny of the 
heathen emperors, we shall not find any one kingdom, though of a 
far larger extent than Ireland, where more Christians suffered, or 
more unparalleled cruelties were acted within the space of the first 
two months after the breaking out of this rebellion. Eastern bar- 
barians never inflicted upon the most base wretches such execrable 
cruelty.' And all the blood there shed lies upon the soul — if soul it 
has— of the Papal Church."* 

But time would fail me to speak of the persecutions 
under "bloody Mary," of the thousands that were in- 
carcerated in the Tower and in dungeons, and who 
perished in the flames of Smithfield, of Oxford, and 
a hundred other places. Of the "Invincible Armada" 

* Letters to Taney. 



276 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

the one hundred and thirty ships, bearing the fearful 
thunder of Spain and of Borne, sent forth by Philip 
II. and the Pope to destroy Protestant England. Of 
the Papal bulls, and instruments of torture, and priests 
and monks on board, commissioned and sent by the 
Church that cannot err, and that never changes, to 
subdue heretics to the true faith, or utterly exterminate 
them. Of the diabolical " Gunpowder Plot :" a plot to 
blow up the Parliament house, with the King and 
royal family, the nobility and assembled wisdom of 
England, and then, in the midst of the consternation 
and loss by the fearful tragedy, to seize upon the 
throne and bring the nation back to the dominion of 
Popery ! Of the scores of thousands who have been 
imprisoned and butchered or burned alive in Spain, 
under the most cruel Philip, whom the Pope delighted 
to call " his most Catholic Majesty." Of the dying 
groans of the untold numbers that have rent the air 
and wailed up the vallej^s, and echoed amid the hills 
in Piedmont, and Hungary, and Switzerland, and Scot- 
land. Of the hundreds of thousands who have died 
in dungeons, or perished on the rack, or amid the 
flames, under the tender mercies of "Mother Church," 
in Italy. Time would fail me ; and the heart sickens, 
the head grows dizzy, and the eye swims, at the 
thought of such bloody persecutions ; bloody persecu- 
tion in the name of the benign religion of Him who, 
when he was reviled, reviled not, and who taught to 
" do unto all men as we would they should do unto 
us;" bloody persecution, to advance His religion! 
How true the description of the prophet: "She was 
drunken with the blood of the saints" ! 



PRACTICE — PERSECUTION. 277 

Nor lias the Church of Borne, even in this enlight- 
ened age and day, changed her principles or her prac- 
tice. She is shorn of much of her power, but in heart 
and in act, where she can, she is the same. She has 
never voluntarily relinquished any ground, or changed 
or abrogated any principle. Her canon laws are now 
the same, and in full force. Pius IX. but a little over 
two years ago called " liberty of conscience a most pesti- 
lential error ;" and issued a bull declaring the law of 
Sardinia "null and void." The noble Madai family, 
for reading the Bible, only half a dozen years since, 
were thrown into a prison in Tuscany, and their goods 
confiscated. There they would have lingered and per- 
ished but for the interference of Protestant England. 
And now there are lingering in the dungeons of the In- 
quisition in Italy, and the prisons of Austria, men and 
women for the crime of reading the Bible and of wor- 
shipping God according to the dictates of conscience, 
under the illumination of His Holy Spirit. And the 
laws of Portugal and Spain, Tuscany and Sicily, Na- 
ples and Austria, forbid the possession and reading 
of God's holy Word without the license of a priest, and 
the profession of any other religion than the Eoman 
Catholic, and recognize them as crimes and misdemean- 
ors, to be punished w r ith imprisonment and loss of 
property and honor, and in some of them with death. 

In the Civilta Cattolica, a journal published at 
Koine, under the eye of Pius IX., and, indeed, his 
organ, if any one paper may be so considered, bearing 
date November, 1854, we have this doctrine emphat- 
ically set forth. The question discussed is : 

" What are the limits of the power of coercion? There 



278 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

are but two," the writer — perhaps the Pope — replies, 
"which, in fact, comprehend all others, means and 
odmf* 

" The Church must inquire how far her means extend, and what 
degree of severity her end requires ? 

" What, then, are the limits of the Church's means? There are 
none except the limits of human power and of the divine assistance by 
which the Church is comforted. As the Church commands the 
spiritual part of man directly, she therefore commands the whole 
man, and all that depends on man* 

" So far, then, as the means are concerned, the Church finds no 
limit to her use of penal justice. 

" To what extent may the Church make use of severity ? Here 
also we answer, that the aim of itself does not impose any limits . . . 
There are no limits to the exercise of the coercive power of the 
Church. 

" We leave it, then, to the Church to determine to what extent she 
can or must be s°vere. . . . It belongs to the Church t-o declare 
to what extent Catholicism has been offended, of which she alone can 
be a competent judge ; but she will leave it to the lay judge to de- 
termine the punishment in the civil order." How condescending. 

" This, however — may the enemios of the Church remember it — 
this is voluntary moderation on the part of the Church, mom a right 
conceded to any body to check her. The Church is meek, because 
this is her spirit, (!) not as if she being a spiritual society, has no 
right to punish, even with blood or with death. . . . We 
shall have to allow the Church to use those means, without which she 
cannot subsist, and to make each one who does not listen to author- 
ity and reason, listen to the impression of a sensible punish- 
ment " If 

Verily, Rome " never changes" In the Waldensian 

* This makes out her claim to temporal power, and to do as she 
pleases with man. 

f Translation by Dr. McClintock. The Italian and translation are 
both before me, in " The Temporal Power of the Pope,'' in separate 
columns. 



PRACTICE — PEESECUTION. 279 

murders, in the massacre of St. Bartholomew, in the 
Irish butchery, in the bloody persecutions of the 
bloody Mary, in the Invincible Armada, the Gunpow- 
der Plot, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the in- 
carceration of the Madai in the dungeons of Tuscany, 
and the solemnly-emphatic declaration of the mouth- 
piece of Pius IX. in the middle of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, that "The Church has a right to punish, even with 
blood or with death f to make men who would be free 
and serve God in spirit and in truth, " listen to the im- 
pression of a sensible punishment;" she is ever the same. 
She " cannot err," her infallible head affirmed in 1832 ; 
and therefore cannot change. To admit that she has 
erred in all her butcheries is to deny her infallibility. 
No, no ; she was right in the work of blood and death on 
St. Bartholomew's Day ; and what was right then, must 
be right now. Give her the power, therefore, let her 
gain the ascendency in these United States, and she 
will, must, persecute and kill as in Europe, and as in 
other days. The Protestants of this Eepublic, then 
fallen, would have undeniable, fearful demonstration 
of it, as they would be compelled to " listen to the im- 
pression of a sensible punishment ." 

Finally, we have the crowning proof, that the Church 
of Eome is persecuting and blood-thirsty in the Inqui- 
sition, its origin, its character, its bloody work, and its 
cherished perpetuation down to the 'present day. 

The Inquisition is a spiritual court which has power 
to punish for heresy, witchcraft, sorcery — in a word, 
for any religious opinions held contrary to the teach- 
ing of Eome — not only with excommunication, but 
with imprisonment for a term of years, or for life, to 



280 THE GEEAT APOSTASY. 

send to the galleys as a slave, to banish, from home and 
country, to strangle and to burn alive. Also to con- 
fiscate property, and to prohibit, upon pain of punish- 
ment and death, issues from the press, of any and all 
religious books published by Protestants, and the Bi- 
ble. This court holds all its sessions in secret. Its 
work of torture, and condemnation, and imprisonment, 
and now of execution by strangling or by burning, 
is all done in secret. All who escape its grasp and 
fangs with their lives, by the clemency of the In- 
quisitors, are sworn never to divulge what they 
saw and suffered. Witnesses from any and every 
quarter, the most abandoned and the most design- 
ing, bitter enemies, are allowed to testify, not how- 
ever, in the presence of the accused, who is not, and 
cannot be informed who has testified against him, and 
what, and why. He has no chance, therefore, to cross- 
examine, and refute, or rebut the testimony, and can 
have no advocate. Eumor is enough to lodge a com- 
plaint; and for the officials, or menials of the "Holy 
Office," as it has been most impiously called, to seize 
man or woman, high or low, and hurry them away at 
midnight, without a moment's warning or preparation ; 
and then, if they will not voluntarily confess, though 
guiltless, they are put to the torture, till rending nerves, 
and dislocated, breaking bones, compel them to crimi- 
nate themselves, with the vain hope, as they are falsely 
promised, of a speedjr release ; but alas ! to undergo 
severer tortures and punishments for the crimes they 
have been made falsely to confess ! 

This court is, or was for a long time, in many coun- 
tries, independent of the civil government. Its sad, 



PKACTICE — PERSECUTION. 281 

diabolical work of seizure at midnight, of even the best 
citizens, or fairest maidens, and their torture, or unholy 
abuse, and imprisonment and death, was carried on 
without the power of citizens, or magistrates, or gov- 
ernors, and sometimes even the king himself, to raise 
a voice or hand against it. The Inquisitors, always 
prelates, or priests, or monks, cut down with one 
hand friend or foe who stood in their way, and some 
whose only crime it was to be rich, and with the other 
appropriated his wealth to the " Holy Office," beggar- 
ing the heart-broken widow and orphaned children; 
and then, as if this were not enough, and to reach the 
climax of cruelty and corruption, would take the or- 
phaned, friendless, fair young maidens, to their lustful 
bosoms ! 

Nothing so utterly at variance with the laws of God 
and humanity, in Heathen, or Mohammedan, or Chris- 
tian lands, ever existed in any age of the world, in all 
the bloody wars and persecutions of our fallen, race. It 
is the acme in the refinements of cruelty ; the culmina- 
tion of demon-like persecution, and torture, and butch- 
ery, and wickedness. 

It had its rise in the beginning of the thirteenth cen- 
tury, about the year 1212, in the persecutions of the 
"Waldenses. Dominic, now a Saint in the calendar of 
Kome, and to whom prayers are offered up ! was its 
founder, and first general, or head. Innocent III., Ho- 
norius III., and Gregory IX., gave to Dominic letters- 
patent, or full power to imprison and put to death, and 
with him, may be said to be, the fathers of the " Holy 
Office." Frederic II., Emperor of Germany, took the 
Inquisitors, in 1224, under his protection, and gave 



282 THE GEE AT APOSTASY. 

them full power "to punish obstinate heretics with 
death by burning, and penitents with perpetual im- 
prisonment." 

It soon extended over nearly all Europe. Innocent 
IV., in 1229, established it throughout Italy, except 
Naples, which then resisted its introduction. It was 
carried into Spain in 1233. Hungary, Bohemia, Po- 
land, Portugal, &c, were compelled to receive this 
bloody court 

The following extract from a brief of Gregory IX., 
to the Inquisitors, will give some idea of the heartless 
cruelty of the Papacy, and the bloody work of the In- 
quisition, in its very infancy : 

" Since, therefore, according to the office enjoined on ug, we are 
bound to root out all offences from the Kingdom of God, and, as 
much as in us lies, to oppose such beasts (heretics), we deliver into 
your hands the sword of the word of God, which, according to the 
words of the prophet, Jer. xlviii. 10, ' Ye ought not to keep back from 
blood, 1 but inspired with zeal for the Catholic faith, like Phineas, 
make diligent inquisition concerning these pestilent wretches, their 
believers, receivers, and abettors, and proceed against those who, by 
such inquisition, shall be found guilty, according to the canonical 
sanctions and our statutes, which we have lately published, to con- 
found heretical pravity, calling in against them, if need be, the as- 
sistance of the secular arm." 

I have now before me Articles for regulating the 
proceedings of the Inquisition, drawn up in 1484, 
by Torquemada, Inquisitor-General of Spain. I will 
give a part of them. The first article relates to the 
organization of the Inquisition : 

" 2. An edict shall be published, accompanied by censures against 
those who do not accuse themselves voluntarily during the time of 
grace. 



PRACTICE — PERSECUTION. 283 

" 3. A delay of thirty days shall be appointed for heretics to de- 
clare themselves. 

" 4. All voluntary confessions shall be written in the presence of 
the Inquisitors and a clerk. 

" 6. A part of the penance on a reconciled heretic, shall oonsist 
in his being deprived of all honorable employments, and of the use 
of gold, silver, and silk. 

" 7. Pecuniary penalties to be imposed on all who make a volun* 
tary confession. 

" 8. The person who accuses himself after the term of grace can- 
not be exempted from the punishment of confiscation. 

"10. The Inquisitors shall declare in their act of reconciliation, 
the exact time when the offender fell into heresy, that the portion of 
property to be confiscated may be ascertained. 

"II. If a heretic, while in prison, demands absolution, and ap- 
pears to feel true repentance, it may be granted, imposing at the 
same time perpetual imprisonment. 

"12. But if the Inquisitors are suspicious of a prisoner's repent- 
ance, they may refuse absolution, and declare him to be a false 
penitent, and condemn him to be burned. 

" 14. If the accused persist in denying his crimes, even after the 
publication of his testimony, he is to be condemned as impenitent. 

"15. If a semi-proof exists against a person who denies the charge 
brought against him, he is to be put to the torture ; if he confesses 
during the torture, and afterwards confirms his confessions, he is to 
be punished as convicted ; if he retracts he is to be tortured again, 
or condemned to an extraordinary punishment /* 

"16. The entire deposition of the witnesses shall not be commu- 
nicated to the accused. 

" 18. One or more Inquisitors shall be present when a prisoner is 
tortured, or appoint a commissioner in their place. 

"19. If the accused does not appear when summoned, he shall be 
condemned as a heretic. 

" 20. When it is proved that a person by his writings or conduct 
dies a heretic, he shall be judged and condemned as such, his body 
disinterred and burned, and his property confiscated. 

* Can the life of man be more completely in the hands, and at 
the disposition of his fellows 



284 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

" 22. In the event of a man burned for heresy leaving children 
under age, the Inquisitors shall grant them a portion of their father's 
property under the title of alms, and confide their education to 
proper persons." 

" Three kinds of torture," says Puigblanch, " have been generally 
used by the Inquisition, viz., the pulley, the rack, and fire. The 
victim was conducted to a retired apartment, called the hall of tor- 
ture, and usually situated under the ground, in order that his cries 
might not interrupt the silence which reigned throughout the other 
parts of the building. Here the court assembled, and the judges 
being seated, together with their secretary, again questioned the 
prisoner respecting his crime, which if he still persisted to deny, they 
proceeded to the execution of the sentence. 

" The first torture was performed by fixing a pulley to the roof 
of the hall, with a strong hempen or grass rope passed through it. 
The executioners then seized the culprit, and leadiDg him — naked to 
his drawers — put shackles on his feet, and suspended weights of one 
hundred pounds to his ankles. His hands were then bound behind 
his back, and the rope from the pulley strongly fastened to his 
wrists. In this situation he was raised about the height of a man 
from the ground, and in the meantime the judges coolly admonished 
him to reveal the truth. In this position, as far as twelve stripes 
were sometimes inflicted on him, according to the inferences and 
weight of the offence. He was then suffered to fall suddenly, but 
in such manner that neither his feet nor the weights reached the 
ground, in order to render the shock of his body greater. 

" The torture of the rack, also called that of water and ropes, 
and the one most commonly used, was inflicted by stretching the 
victim, naked as before, on his back,* along a wooden horse or 
hollow bench, with sticks across like a ladder, and prepared for the 
purpose. To this his feet, hands, and head were strongly bound in 
such a manner as to leave him no room to move. In this attitude 
he experienced eight strong contortions in his limbs, viz. : two on the 
fleshy parts of his arms above the elbows, and two below, one on 
each thigh, and also on the legs. He was besides obliged to swallow 

* Men and women were frequently stripped entirely naked and 
alike tortured. 



PRACTICE — PERSECUTION. 285 

seven pints of water, slowly dropped into his mouth on a piece of silk 
or ribbon, which by the pressure of the water, glided down his 
throat, so as to produce all the horrid sensations of a person who is, 
drowning. At other times his face was covered with a thin piece 
of linen, through which the water ran into his mouth and nostrils, 
and prevented him from breathing. Of such a form did the inqui- 
sition of Valladolid make use, in 1528, toward the licentiate Juan 
Salas, physician of that city. 

" For the torture by fire, the prisoner was placed with his legs 
naked in the stocks ; the soles of his feet were then well greased with 
lard, and a blazing chafing-dish applied to them, by the heat of 
which they became perfectly fried. When his complaints of the 
pain were loudest, a board was placed between his feet and the fire, 
and he was again commanded to confess, but this was taken away if 
he persisted in his obstinacy. This species of torture was deemed 
the most cruel of all ; but this, a3 well as the others, was indis- 
criminately applied to persons of both sexes, at the will of the judges, 
according to the circumstances of the crime, and the strength of the 
delinquents. 

Other kinds of torture were used, especially in Italy. 
The dice, the canes, the rods, the thumb- sere uj, the iron 
collar, the wooden glove, and last, though not least — and 
how many more God only knows — the pendulum. 
In this last, the poor victim, who might have undergone 
other tortures, was placed upon his back, with his face 
beneath a long pendulum, with, an oval, sharp knife in 
the end, which by pulleys is oscillated, and at each 
vibration it approaches nearer and nearer the face, till 
at length it touches and then cuts the skin, and down 
deeper, deeper, till the gashing, parting face lets the 
trembling spirit free. This was less cruel than many 
others, because more expeditious. 

" The duration of the torture," says the same excellent writer, 
Puigblanch, " by a bull of Paul III., could not exceed an hour ; and 
if in the Inquisition of Italy it was not usual for it to last so long, 



286 THE GEE AT APOSTASY. 

in that of Spain, which has always boasted of surpassing all others 
in zeal for the faith, it was prolonged for an hour and a quarter. 
The sufferer through the intensity of pain, was sometimes left sense- 
less, for which case a physician was always in attendance, to inform 
the court whether the paroxysm was real or feigned ; and according 
to his opinion, the torture was continued or suspended. When the 
victim remained firm in his denial, and overcame the pangs inflicted 
on him, or when, after confessing under them, he refused to ratify 
his confession within twenty-four hours afterwards — he has been 
forced to undergo as far as three tortures, with only one day's inter- 
val between each. Thus while his imagination was still filled with 
the dreadful idea of his past sufferings, which the ' Compilations of 
Instructions ' itself calls agony, his limbs stiff and sore, and his 
strength debilitated, he was called upon to give fresh proofs of his 
constancy, and again endure the horrid spectacle, as well as the repe- 
tition of excrutiating pangs, tending to rend his whole frame to 
pieces. 

Well might a Spanish writer exclaim : 

" What blasphemy in this tribunal, ever to pretend to be actuated 
by a divine impulse, when every brick seems a conjuring spell, and 
every officer a tormenting fiend ! Why such scandalous methods, 
as a secret chamber, an unseen tribunal, invisible witnesses, a per- 
fidious secretary, and merciless servants — confiscation of goods 
through fraud and guile, keepers as hard-hearted as the relentless 
walls, the fiscal mutes, the shameful san-benitos, unrighteous racks, 
a theatre filled with horror to astonish the prisoner, a hypocritical 
sentence, a disguised executioner, and a peremptory judge ? In all 
the times of Paganism, no such Roman tribunal was ever erected. 
In their amphitheatres, men had not quite put off humanity ; those 
condemned to die were exposed to wild beasts to be torn to pieces, 
they knew their executioner ; but here the condemned are tormented 
by disguised ones — men they should be by their shape, but devils 
by their fierceness and cruelty." 

And yet the Inquisition, it is proclaimed, is a re- 
ligious tribunal, and we know that it is the cherished 
offspring and right-arm of the infallible Papacy ! 



PRACTICE — PERSECUTION. 287 

I will give a few cases of torture, and suffering, and 
death, of the hundreds of thousands that fill and crowd 
the pages of the history of this bloody tribunal for six 
hundred years. 

Arrests generally take place silently, in the dark, 
solemn hour of midnight. All are at rest ; and visions 
of peace, and friends, and glory, or of approaching, 
threatening fiends, flit across the mind, or disturb the 
slumbering soul, when suddenly a small band of mon- 
sters approach the residence and demand entrance. 
" In whose name is this required?" it is tremblingly 
asked. " The Holy Office/' is the stern, low response. 
" The thunderbolt, launched from the black and angry 
cloud," says Puigblanch, "strikes not with such alarm, 
as the sound of L Deliver yourself up a prisoner to the 
Inquisition!' Astonished and trembling, the unwary 
citizen hears the dismal voice ; a thousand different 
affections at once seize upon his panic-stricken frame — 
he remains perplexed and motionless. His life in 
danger, his deserted wife and orphan children, eternal 
infamy the only patrimony that now awaits his bereft 
family, are all which rush upon his mind : he is at 
once agitated by an agony of dilemma and despair. 
The burning tear scarcely glistens on his livid cheek, 
the accents of woe die on his lips, and amid the alarm 
and desolation of his family, he is borne away to dun- 
geons, whose damp and bare walls can alone witness 
the anguish of his mind." What does he suffer there? 
And w^hat is his end? In untold cases God only 
knows ! 

In 1560 — I will not go back beyond the dawn of the 
glorious Eeformation — a lady of some rank and influ- 



288 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

ence at Seville, Spain, Juan a de Xeres y Borhorques, 
was apprehended and thrown into prison, in conse- 
quence of some implications extorted from her sister 
Maria by the rack. " Being six months gone in preg- 
nancy, Dona Juana was imprisoned in the public jail 
till her delivery. Bight days thereafter her child was 
taken from her, and she was placed in a cell in the In- 
quisition. A young woman was imprisoned beside 
her, who exerted herself to the utmost to promote the 
afflicted lady's recovery ; but the attendant was soon 
subjected to the torture herself, and remitted to her 
cell mangled by the process. As soon as Dona Juana 
could rise from her bed of rushes, she was in her turn 
tortured by the Inquisitors. She would not confess. 
She was placed on one of their instruments of cruelty. 
The cords penetrated through the delicate flesh to the 
bone of her arms and legs. Some of the internal 
vessels burst. The blood flowed in streams from her 
mouth and nostrils. She was conveyed to her cell in a 
state of insensibility, and died in the course of a few 
days." 

Eight females, however, at the same time survived 
the torture, and were led out and burned. 

In the same year, at Murcia, thirty were burned. In 
the same place in 1562, twenty- three perished. In the 
next year seventeen, and the two following thirty-five. 
For a long period there was an "Auto dafe"* in every 
prominent city and province of Spain, annually. 
Hundreds of thousands perished, as many were im- 
prisoned for life or banished, and as many left their 

* " An act of faith." It ought to be styled: " Burning to death at the 
instigation of Satan." 



PRACTICE — PERSECUTION. 289 

native land seeking safety by flight. The Duke of 
Alva once boasted that thirty-six thousand had per- 
ished in his dominions. 

The most fearfully imposing " auto da fe" which, 
perhaps, ever took place, occurred at Madrid in the 
presence of Charles II and the royal family and nobility 
and an immense multitude, in 1680 : 

" On the day appointed," says Sime, in the " History of the Inqui- 
sition," " the procession began to move from the Inquisition, in the 
following order, at seven o'clock in the morning : 

" The soldiers of the faith came first, and cleared the way ; next 
followed the; cross of the parish of St. Martin, covered with black, 
and accompanied with twelve priests clothed in surplices, and a 
clergyman with a pluvial cope ; then came the prisoners to the 
amount of one hundred and twenty — seventy-two of whom were 
women, and forty-eight men ; some came forth in effigy, and the 
remainder in person. First in the order of the procession were the 
effigies of those condemned persons who had died or made their 
escape, and amounting in all to thirty-four ; their names were in- 
scribed in large letters on the breast of their effigies ; and those who 
had been condemned to be burned, besides the coroza or cap on their 
heads, had flames represented on their dresses, and some bore boxes 
in their hands, containing the bones of their corresponding originals. 
* * * Behind the effigy of each culprit were also conveyed 
boxes containing their books, when they had been seized with them, 
for the purpose also of being cast into the flames. The Courts of 
the Inquisition followed immediately after. 

" Next, on horseback, paraded the sheriffs and other ministers of 
the city, together with the chief bailiffs of the Madrid Inquisition. 
Then the familiars, and then a great number of ecclesiastical minis- 
ters. Behind them the Corporation of Madrid, preceded by the 
Mayor. * * * Lastly, came the Inquisitor-General. He was 
accompanied by an escort of fifty halberdiers, dressed in satin. He 
was clothed in a suit of black silk, embroidered in silver, with dia- 
mond buttons, and attended by eighteen livery servants. 

The prisoners personally condemned to death were nineteen ; thir- 
13 



290 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

teen men and six women. :*.*•* The burning place was sixty 
feet square, and, consequently, sufficiently capacious. * . * * 
Some were previously strangled, and the others at once thrown into 
the fire." 

The living with the dead bodies, and the bones and 
books, were all reduced to ashes, which was not till 
"nine next morning." All the others, by confessions 
and penitence, were reconciled and sent back to prison 
— some for life, and others were punished in various 
ways. 

The Eev. Mr. Wilcox, of the Church of England, 
describes an '''•auto daje" which he saw near Lisbon, 
in 1706. He says: 

" Five condemned persons appeared, but only four were burned — 
Antonio Travanes being reprieved after the procession. Heztor 
Dias and Maria Pinteyra were burned alive, and the other two were 
strangled. The woman was alive in the flames for half an hour, and 
the man above an hour. The king and his brother were seated at a 
window, so near as to be addressed for a considerable time, in very 
moving terms, by the man, as he was burning ; and, though he asked 
only a few faggots, he was not able to obtain them !" 

On the accession of Philip V. to the throne of Spain, 
in 1700, as Archduke Charles of Austria claimed it, a 
civil war broke out. Philip employed some fourteen 
or fifteen thousand troops of the King of France. The 
French troops, under their intrepid leader, M. Legal, 
took Saragossa. He levied a contribution on the in- 
habitants and the convents. The Dominicans came to 
an open rupture with him ; and, being familiars of the 
" Holy Office," and Inquisitors, tried first to raise a 
mob against him, and then excommunicated him for 
sacrilege. But they had not to do with unarmed citi- 
zens and defenceless females. The indignant French- 



PRACTICE — PERSECUTION. 291 

man ordered out four regiments of troops, and turned 
all the wicked fraternity out of the massive buildings of 
the lordly tribunal. H The doors of all the prisons were 
thrown open," says a historian, "and four hundred 
prisoners set at liberty. Among them were sixty young 
women, who were found to be the private property of the 
three Inquisitors ! whom they had unjustly taken from 
their fathers' homes in the city and neighborhood."* 

The Inquisitors complained to Philip, but as the 
troops were not his own, compulsory measures would 
drive them from his support. He, therefore, could do 
nothing. 

"The Archbishop, however," says the historian, 
" deeply concerned for the honor of the holy tribunal, 
requested M. Legal to send the women to his palace (!), 
promising that he would take care of them (?), and 
threatening with, excommunication all who should dare 
to defame the tribunal of the Inquisition !" But the 
French officers, he was informed, had taken possession 
of them. 

Poor women ! taken from happy homes, and shut 
up in worse than a living hell to gratify at will the holy 
desires of the holy Inquisitors ! and then liberated to 
be dragged away amid scenes of pollution! But any 
place or condition was better than the prison of those 
corrupt tyrants and their lawless associations, in which, 
after a few weeks or months, having served an end, 
they might, at any moment, be broken on the wheel 
and consumed at the stake. 

Napoleon, while in power in Spain, gave a powerful 
blow to the usurpations and tyranny of the Inquisition. 

* Talk of Mormonism ! it is Christianity compared to such. 



292 THE GEEAT APOSTASY. 

In 1808 he suppressed the Holy Office at Chamistin, near 
Madrid. On the 22d of February, 1813, the Cortes, 
who assembled at Madrid, abolished the Inquisition 
throughout the kingdom. Whatever may have been 
the vast designs of Napoleon, if, in his far-reaching 
views and the mighty sweep of his plans and aims, he 
seemed to be a tyrant, he was the friend of the masses, 
and of down-trodden, bleeding humanity. As soon as 
Ferdinand VII. was securely seated upon the throne in 
1814,he reestablished this foul blot on the name of Christ, 
and scourge of our race. Early in 1815, the 12th of Feb- 
ruary, the Holy Inquisitors issued their mandate to 
all confessors, and peremptorily required all Protest- 
ants, or suspected persons, u to accuse themselves before 
said confessors." And "on the 5th of April, Don 
Francisco Xavier de Mier y Campillo, Inquisitor-Gen- 
eral, published an edict, offering a term of grace to 
those who had fallen into the crime of heresy I" " The 
Man of Sin," the "beast," stood forth again. 

In 1817 Lieut.-Col. Don Juan Yan Halen was im- 
prisoned in the dungeons of this still bloody tribunal. 
He has given us a very graphic and faithful account 
of his imprisonment and sufferings. He was arrested 
at Murcia on the 21st of September, and lodged in the 
dungeons there ; thence he was removed to Madrid. 
A brief extract will give the reader a glimpse of what 
he endured, and show that Eome in this enlightened 
age is the same persecuting, blood-thirsty tyrant that 
she was in the dark ages : 

"About eight o'clock at night, on the 20th of November, Don 
Juanita (one of the Inquisitors) entered my dungeon with a lantern 
in his hand, followed by four other men, whose faces were concealed 



PRACTICE — PERSECUTION. 293 

by a piece of black cloth, shaped above the head like a cowl, and 
falling over the shoulders and chest, in the middle of which were 
two holes for the eyes. I was half asleep when the noise of the 
doors opening awoke me, and by the dim light of the lantern I per- 
ceived those frightful apparitions. Imagining I was laboring under 
the effects of a dream, I earnestly gazed awhile on the group, till 
one of them approached, and pulling me by the leather strap with 
which my arms were bound, gave me to understand by signs that I 
was to rise. Having obeyed his summons, my face was covered 
with a leather mask, and in this manner I was led out of the prison. 
After walking through various passages on a level with that of my 
dungeon, we entered a room, where I heard Zorilla (the other Inquis- 
itor) order my attendants to untie the strap. 

" l Listen with great attention,' he then exclaimed, addressing me : 
' since you have hitherto been deaf to the advice which this holy tri- 
bunal has repeatedly given you in their spirit of peace, humanity and 
religious charity. (!) Propagator of secret and impious societies, 
established by the heresies of their members to destroy our holy 
religion and the august throne of our Catholic sovereign, you 
have maintained, for the space of a year, an uninterrupted corre- 
spondence with more than two hundred sectarians. * * * This 
holy tribunal has at last recourse to rigor. It will extort from you 
the truths, which neither the duty of a religious oath, demanded 
without violence, nor the mild admonitions which have been so often 
resorted to, in order to induce you to make the desired declarations, 
have been able to obtain. This evident pertinacity obliges us to 
use a salutary severity. We judge the cause of our Divine Ke- 
deemer and of our Catholic King, and we shall know how to fulfil 
the high ministry with which the supreme spiritual and temporal 
authority has invested us. *' * * The most rigorous torments will 
be employed to obtain from you these truths, or you shall expire in the 
midst of them. All the charges I have just mentioned in a sum- 
mary manner must be amply explained — yes ! amply explained ! 
Justice, God, and the king require that it should be so. This holy 
tribunal will fulfil their duties* — yes !' , 

" The agitation of the moment permitted me to utter only a few 
words, which, however, were not listened to, and I was hurried 
away to the further end of the room, the jailer and his assistants 



294 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

exerting all their strength to secure me. Having succeeded in raising 
rue from the ground, they placed under my arm-pits two high 
crutches, from which I remained suspended; after which, my right 
arm was tied to the corresponding crutch, whilst the left being kept 
in a horizontal position, they encased my hand open in a wooden 
glove extending to the wrist, which shut very tightly, and from which 
two large iron bars ran as far as the shoulder, keeping the whole in 
the same position in which it was placed. My waist and legs were 
similarly bound to the crutches by which I was supported ; so that 
I shortly remained without any other action than that of breathing, 
though with difficulty. 

" Having remained a short time in this painful position, that un- 
merciful tribunal returned to their former charges. Zorilla, with a 
tremulous voice that seemed to evince his thirst for blood and 
vengeance, repeated the first of those he had just read, namely, whether 
I did not belong to a society whose object it was to overthrow our holy 
religion, and the august throne of our Catholic sovereign? I replied 
that it was impossible I should plead guilty to an accusation of that 
nature. ' Without any subterfuge, say whether it is so/ he added 
in an angry tone. 

" ' It is not, sir/ I replied. The glove which guided my arm, and 
which seemed to be resting on the edge of a wheel, began now to 
turn, and, with its movements, I felt by degrees an acute pain, espe- 
cially from the elbow to the shoulder, a general convulsion throughout 
my frame, and a cold sweat overspreading my face. The interroga- 
tory continued, but Zorilla 's questions of ' Is it so ? Is it so V were 
the only words that struck my ear amid the excruciating pain I 
endured, which became so intense that I fainted away, and heard no 
more the voices of those cannibals. 

" When I recovered my senses, I found myself stretched on the 
floor of my dungeon, my hands and feet secured with heavy fetters 
and manacles, fastened by a thick chain, the nails of which my 
tormentors were still riveting ! Left by those wretches stretched in 
the same place, I could have wished that the doors, which closed 
after them, should never again open. Eternal sleep was all I desired, 
and all I asked of Heaven. It was after much difficulty that I 
dragged myself to my bed. It seemed to me that the noise of my 
chains would awaken the vigilance of my jailers, whose presence was 



PRACTICE — PERSECUTION. 295 

to me the most fatal of my torments. I spent the whole of the night 
struggling with the intense paios which were the effects of the 
torture, and with the workings of my excited mind, which offered 
but a horrible perspective to my complicated misfortunes. The 
state of mental agitation, and the burning fever which was every 
moment increasing, soon threw me into a delirium, during which I 
scarcely noticed the operation performed by my jailers, of opening 
the seams of my coat to examine the state of my arm." 

After undergoing almost continued and indescribable 
cruelties — cruelties that none but blood-thirsty demons 
would inflict — under a gracious Providence, by almost 
a miracle, he escaped, in 1818. That saved him from 
a horrible death under Zorilla's fangs. 

And this persecution, this satanic cruelty, was per- 
petrated in the latter part of the first quarter of this 
glorious nineteenth century! I may add, and I am 
glad to add, for the honor of human nature, that, a few 
years since, the Inquisition was again suppressed in 
Spain. Not, however, by "Mother Church;" oh ; no; 
but without her consent and against her will. The 
light of this happy age, the effulgence of Protestantism, 
had at length dawned upon the moral gloom which 
shrouded the Spanish mind, and it was hailed as the 
epoch of a brighter day ; and, despite the frown and 
thunder of Eome, that mind rose in its might and over- 
turned this bloody tribunal which had for centuries 
poured out the best blood of that unhappy country, 
and which will forever remain as a foul blot upon her 
name. When the prisons were thrown open, haggard 
victims came forth, some of whom had grown gray in 
their lonely cells, and others were under the sentence 
of death. 

In the Eevolution in Eome, in 1848, the " Holy In- 



296 THE GEEAT APOSTASY. 

quisition" was invaded, its dark dungeons thrown open, 
and the wretched inmates set free. Some of them 
knew not for what offence they had been incarcerated ; 
some had been tortured and were to have suffered 
death. In one cold, damp cell, the bones of a female 
skeleton, and long locks of silken hair, were found. 
• ***'■»* When Pius IX. was again firmly 
seated upon the throne, and the people put at defiance 
by French and Austrian bayonets, he reestablished 
the "Holy Office" with its prisons, and racks, and 
pulleys, and iron collars, and gloves, and water, and 
fire. And now, in the dark hour of midnight, its dia- 
bolical work of seizure, and imprisonment, and tor- 
ture, and death, goes on, close to the splendid palace of 
him who, "clothed in purple and fine linen," sitteth 
in the temple of God and proclaims that he is the 
" Vicar of the Son of God"! 

• The graphic picture of the poet does not bring out 
the dark shades of this unholy tribunal in all their 
gloom and in all their horror. No! none can fully 
describe the Inquisition ; no painter can transfer it to 
canvas : 

" The Inquisition, model most complete, 
Of perfect wickedness, where deeds wore done — 
Deeds ! let them never be named — and sat and planned 
Deliberately, and with most musing pains, 
How to extremest thrill of agony 
The flesh, the blood, the souls of holy men, 
Her victims, might be wrought ; and when she saw 
New tortures of her laboring fancy born, 
She leaped for joy, and made great haste to try 
Their force — well pleased to hear a deeper groan ! 
The supplicating hand of innocence, 



PRACTICE — PERSECUTION. 297 

That made the tiger mild, and, in its wrath, 
The lion pause, the groans of suffering most 
Severe, were nought to her : she laughed at groans ; 
No music pleased her more ; and no repast 
So sweet to her, as blood of men redeemed 
By blood of Christ. Ambition's self, though mad, 
And nursed on human gore, with her compared. 
Was merciful.'" 

The evidence, then, is clear — no evidence indeed 
could be more so — that the Church of Rome is perse- 
cuting and blood-thirsty. She is the woman that John 
saw sitting on the scarlet-colored beast, who was 
drunken with the blood of the saints* 

Now, if the General Conferences of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, like the Councils of Basil, Con- 
stance, Lateran, and Trent, had passed persecuting 
laws ; if her senior bishops had decreed the utter ex- 

* I had intended to speak of the Inquisition at Goa, in the East 
Indies — missionary ground — but my space will not permit. Thousands 
have been immured in dungeons there, and tortured and burned alive. 
M. Dellon, a French physician, who was imprisoned there for two 
years, his property confiscated, and who was sentenced to the galleys 
for five years, for no crime but speaking against the " Holy Office," 
gives a very graphic account of it. C. Buchanan, LL.D., who 
travelled in India in 1808, visited Goa, and confirms, in his Christian 
Researches, all that M. Dellon has said. Buchanan talked with the 
Inquisitors, and they admitted what M. Dellon had written, but said 
he mistook their motives ! and judged harshly of the holy Catholic 
Church ! I would refer the reader especially to Buchanan's work. 

I had also intended to give the reader the oath of abjuration that 
the Inquisition imposed on Galileo, when, in the ignorance of its in- 
fallibility, it made him deny the truth of science. And also the perse- 
cution of Free Masons in Spain, and other countries, in the middle of 
the last century. And, finally, to give a brief fist of some of the books, 
Locke's, Bacon's, Milton's, &c, &c, prohibited by this tribunal. But 
enough and more than enough, 

13* 



298 THE GEE AT APOSTASY. 

termination of all who are not in heart and soul Method- 
ists; if her laity, magistrates, governors, and all in 
authority, had been taught and commanded to kill and 
destroy all such, and confiscate their goods ; if her 
theologians and writers, Wesley, Fletcher, Clarke, Ben- 
son, Watson, Asbury, Emory, Bangs, &c., had taught 
the same demoniac doctrine ; if all these decrees and 
teachings had never been repealed nor rejected ; if a 
spiritual court, some terrible, mysterious Inquisition 
had existed for a hundred years and more, in her 
bosom and by her authority, whose dark dungeons 
had ever heard the sighs of incarcerated victims, whose 
multiplied instruments of torture had ever groaned 
with the rending muscles and breaking bones of tor- 
tured men and women, and whose fires had ever blazed 
with martyred innocents ; if that Inquisition were in 
full blast now; and if her past history had been 
stained with the blood of a St. Bartholomew, of a 
Smithfield, of an Irish massacre, of a Gunpowder Plot, 
and of blood, blood! in ten thousand other places ; and 
then, if she were gravely to teach that she cannot err, 
and never changes, what would be the judgment of 
every sane, candid mind? Oh! what would be the 
scathing, terrible, just denunciations of every patriot 
and friend of humanity in this mighty Eepublic, and, 
indeed, everywhere, where the liberty of speech is en- 
joyed, and men have souls in them. And yet we are 
told with affected feelings of surprise and indignation, 
by some presses and aspiring orators, that the Church 
of Eome is not a persecuting Church ! and with the 
next breath, that if Protestants had the power they 
would persecute and destroy as Eome has done. Such 



PKACTICE — PERSECUTION. 299 

are ignorant, totally ignorant of the canon law and 
history of this corrupt woman, who is, as inspiration 
represents, " drunken with the blood of the saints;" 
or, they are wicked, truculent sycophants, who would 
sell their country to a tyrant for personal aggrandize- 
ment. 

But it has been affirmed, some Protestants in name 
have averred, that Protestants have persecuted and 
wantonly put to death, as Eoman Catholics have done. 
This deserves a passing, serious thought. 

"When the Reformation first dawned, men saw not as 
in the clear noon-day. The Bible, which had been im- 
piously kept from the people, was but just beginning 
to circulate ; the benign power of a pure Gospel, and 
the benevolent influence of a holy, free press, were not 
enjoyed and felt, as now. They had not made their 
impress upon the great masses struggling to be free. 
The mind was in a transit state. The excesses, the 
persecutions, the shedding of blood, therefore, was an 
evil stream that flowed out of a fountain not fully 
cleansed. Who, then, was most to blame ? Rome, I 
unhesitatingly answer ; Eome, who had kept the mind 
in darkness, aye, who had taught such lessons of cruel- 
ty, and had given constant, terrible proof, for ages, that 
she thought it was right. But now fit is high noon" — 
look abroad! What persecuting canon lives in the 
creeds of Protestants? Where, in old England, in 
Scotland, in these United States, do prisons groan with 
incarcerated victims for religion's sake, and stakes 
flame with the consuming flesh of men and women ? 

To illustrate ; and I would have the reader weigh 
well what I say : 



300 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

If a revolution were to overturn the throne of Aus- 
tria, and the people — made to be free — were trying to 
establish a republic, would there be no excesses, no 
shedding of royal and noble blood ? The history of 
revolutions in Europe fearfully demonstrates that there 
would be. Would republicanism be entirely responsi- 
ble for those excesses and that blood ? Every states- 
man, and every well-read man, with an honest, pa- 
triot's heart in him, would indignantly respond, no! 
Go back two hundred and fifty or three hundred years, 
and stand by the side — aye, take the position and light 
and training in Rome's school — of a Protestant strug- 
gling for the true faith, and to throw off the worst 
tyranny that ever lorded it over and cursed poor fall- 
en man, and tell me what you would do. 

Furthermore, Protestants had just escaped the fires 
of persecution and the bloody grasp of Mother Church, 
who still shook her terrible thunders over their heads, 
and whenever and wherever she could — I appeal to his- 
tory — waged cruel, exterminating wars against them. 
They retaliated. This principle in fallen human na- 
ture is very strong, and the last, perhaps, which is sanc- 
tified. In retaliating they erred, grievously erred ; but 
is not this some palliation ? Had Rome never perse- 
cuted, never tortured, and burned alive, but under such 
circumstances, some shades of light would now gild, 
with a mellow tint, the dark cloud that hangs upon her 
soul. 

In Queen Elizabeth's reign, Roman Catholics were 
imprisoned for crimes and misdemeanors against the 
peace and dignity of the State, and were put to death 
for high treason. They sought in their zeal to over- 



PEACTICE — PERSECUTION. SOI 

throw the Protestant throne, and to place a Eoman 
Catholic prince at the head of the nation. They were 
punished, therefore, as rebels. It is not my province 
to inquire, were they such ? But to oall their impris- 
onment and execution a religious persecution is a mis- 
nomer. 

Now, if the abolitionists at the North, members of 
churches and ministers, were guilty of overt acts of 
treason, and were imprisoned and put to death, who 
could cry out, religious persecution ? 

This was precisely the case in good Queen Bess' 
time. The government was threatened ; and her vigi- 
lance and firmness saved the throne and civil and relig- 
ious liberty. And the debt of gratitude we owe her 
memory none can fully estimate. The pure, bright, 
limpid stream of civil and religious liberty that rolls 
through, and waters and fertilizes our own, our native 
land, if it did not issue from beneath her throne, its 
channel was kept clear, and it was sent singing on its 
glad way to bless the world. May it roll on forever ! 
Elizabeth saved Protestantism, and we are free because 
we are Protestants. 

But the weak, inoffensive, good Waldenses were per- 
secuted only for religion's sake. And the thousands 
butchered on St. Bartholomew's Day were acknowl- 
edged by the treacherous, inhuman Charles, to be 
among the most loyal and best citizens of France. 

Protestants, then, never have persecuted, and im- 
prisoned, and destroyed, as Eoman Catholics have done. 
Their spirit, their principles, their religion, are as differ- 
ent from Eoman Catholicism as day is from night. 

But it is averred that Protestants, if they had the 



302 THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

power, would persecute, and imprison, and burn, as 
the Church of Eome has done. This is a foul libel on 
Protestantism and on our holy religion. Who rules 
England but Protestant Episcopalians? Who predom- 
inate and give tone to sentiment and action in Scot- 
land, but Presbyterians ? Who have established, and 
proclaimed to the world, and now defend, civil and 
religious liberty in this happy Union, but Protestants ? 
Where is the Bible freely circulated, where does an un- 
trammelled press throw off its light, where are the 
sacred rights of conscience fully protected, where the 
liberty of speech and free discussion guaranteed to all, 
and where does each and all worship God according to 
his own sense of duty, and under his own vine and 
fig-tree, in perfect security, but where Protestants reign 
and rule ? No, no ! Protestantism must " tread steps 
backwards," the source of her peace and enlarged 
views and pure principles, the love and favor of God, 
must be dried up, or turned away, and the light which 
shineth unto the perfect day, and the firm foundation 
of her liberties, the blessed Bible, must be taken from 
her, and her great heart must be made bitter as the waters 
of Meribah, ere she can persecute unto death. Then 
she will have ''fallen away," and be as Popery. Then 
she will no longer be the Church of God, nor preach 
the pure religion of Him who is love. Then Eoman 
Catholicism, the great apostasy, will have received a 
mighty accession, or a powerful co-laborer in the un- 
holy work of dwarfing the immortal mind, of tyran- 
nizing over the sacred rights of conscience, and of tor- 
turing the bodies and damning the souls of men. 
God forbid that that day, or night rather, should ever 



PRACTICE — CORRUPTION. 303 

spread its horrid pall and moral death over the land ! 
That night will never come ! The march of Protest- 
antism, " terrible as an army with banners," is onward, 
onward! and, as Jehovah's chosen instrumentality, 
will yet pour the light of salvation upon earth's be- 
nighted millions in Heathen, and in Mohammedan, and 
in Eoman Catholic lands, and bring them forth from 
their idolatry, and superstition, and slavery, and men- 
tal anguish, " regenerated and sanctified ;" and the 
world shall be filled with her happy sons and daugh- 
ters, free indeed, and with the knowledge of the glory 
of God shining in the face of Jesus Christ.* 

The Church of Rome is Corrupt. 

This follows as a necessary sequence from what has 
just been demonstrated. 

The Church of Eome, being idolatrous, intolerant, 
persecuting, and blood-thirsty, must be corrupt. But, as 
the reader, doubtless, has already drawn this conclusion, 
I shall pass on to show that in many other things she 
is corrupt, and gives unmistakable evidence that she 
is the Man of Sin. 

Popes have taught that they are not bound by their own 
solemn oaths, and have annulled or violated them at will. 

Pascal II., in a contest with the Emperor Henry V., 
was overcome and taken prisoner. He made a solemn 

* All who receive, and u build " on Jesus Christ as the only merito- 
rious cause of our salvation ; and who believe that faith in Him — a 
faith that "purifies the heart and works by love" — is the only instrument- 
al cause of pardon and of salvation, and who have that faith, I recog- 
nize as Christians, children of God — the Church. Names signify but 
little, and are utterly worthless where these are wanting. 



304 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

covenant with Henry, confirming it with an oath. The 
oath, was taken under most solemn circumstances : the 
sacrifice of the mass was offered up, and as the Pope 
gave to Henry the consecrated wafer, he said: "As 
this part of the living body is divided, so let him be divided 
from the kingdom of Christ and of God, who shall attempt 
to violate this covenant" Pascal violated this oath; and 
with his "holy" cardinals in the Council of Benius, 
declared it null and void. Here are the words of the 
Council : 

"We all in this sacred Council, assembled with our lord the 
Pope, in accordance with the decisions of the Holy Spirit, condemn 
it (the covenant) with canonical censure, and by ecclesiastical au- 
thority. We decide that it is null and void. We annihilate its 
binding force ; and, that it may be utterly destitute of authority 
and power, we utterly excommunicate it" 

Thus a Eoman Catholic writes of this corrupt and 
nefarious transaction :* 

" Now, the head of the Church suffers himself to.be accused of 
double dealing. He retires to Terracina to weep over his sin ! He 
suffers the cardinals to annul his decrees and promises. He is going 
(he says) to abdicate the tiara. Happily this purpose is opposed ; 
and such is the docility of the pontiff, that he consents with resigna- 
tion to retain the power, so that he may have the opportunity to 
make the better use of it. Finally, in a Council, he revoked the 
treaty which he had the misfortune to subscribe." Infallibility: 

Paul IV., in 1555, entered into a solemn obligation 
in the holy conclave, to secure his election, to make 
only four cardinals. He violated it, and proclaimed 
that the supreme head of the Church "could not be 
bound, or his authority limited by an oath" Bungener 

* Daunou. 






PEACTICE — COBKUPTION. 305 

says he was " a poor old creature whose head had been 
turned on mounting St. Peter's throne."* But he was 
infallible. 

Councils and theologians have taught the same doc- 
trine. 

Popes, Councils, and theologians, have taught that 
no faith is to be kept with heretics ; and Popes, wielding 
the power of the Church, have carried this Satanic doc- 
trine into practice, by absolving subjects from their 
oath of allegiance, and by war and bloodshed. 

Gregory VII. asserted, that as he had "the power of 
the keys to bind and loose, he had authority to dissolve 
the oath of fealty." Urban, in 1090, declared that 
subjects "are by no authority bound to observe the 
fealty which they swear to a Christian prince, who 
withstands God and the Saints, and contemns their 
precepts." Gregory IX., in 1229, taught that "none 
should keep faith with the persons who oppose God 
and the Saints." Urban VI., in 1378, averred that 
"engagements of any kind, even when confirmed by 
an oath, with persons guilty of schism or heresy, though 
made before their apostasy, are in themselves unlawful 
and void." Innocent X. taught that " the Eoman Pon- 
tiff could invalidate civil contracts, promises or oaths, 
made by the friends of Catholicism with the patrons 
of heresy." Paul IV., Paul V., Clement VIL, and a 
host of others, have taught and sanctioned this unholy 
doctrine. 

No less than six general Councils have solemnly 
promulgated such antichristian ethics — two of Late- 
ran, Lyons, Pisa, Constance, and Basil. Several of 

He was 83 years old. 



306 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

them not only taught this doctrine, but abrogated con- 
tracts and engagements, and annulled, or declared void, 
oaths of fealty. The fourth Council of Lateran, in 
1215, decreed that "the subjects of such sovereigns as 
embrace heresy are freed from their fealty.'! The Gene- 
ral Council of Lyons passed a similar, or if possible a 
more wicked decree, and absolved Frederic's subjects 
from their oath of allegiance. 

" The General Council of Constance, on this topic, outstripped 
all competition, and gained an infamous celebrity in recommending 
and exemplifying treachery, the demolition of oaths, and unfaithful- 
ness to engagements. The holy assembly having convicted John, 
though a lawful Pope, of simony, schism, heresy, infidelity, perjury, 
murder, fornication, adultery, rape, incest, sodomy, and a few other 
trifling frailties of a similar kind, deposed his holiness, and emanci- 
pated all Christians from their oath of obedience to his supremacy. 
His Infallibility in the meantime, notwithstanding his simony, 
schism, heresy, perjury, murder, incest, and sodomy, exercised his 
prerogative of dissolving oaths as well as the Council. The holy 
fathers had sworn to conceal from the pontiff their plans for his 
degradation. The trusty prelacy, however, notwithstanding their 
obligation to secrecy, revealed all, during the night, to his Holiness. 
John, by this means, had the satisfaction of discovering the machi- 
nations of his judges, and of inducing the infallible bishops to per- 
jury. The pontiff, however, by his sovereign authority, and by the 
power of the keys, soon disannulled these obligations, and delivered 
the perjured traitors who composed the sacred synod from their 
oath of secrecy. The Pontiff showed the Council that he could de- 
molish oaths as well as his accusers. 

" Bailly, in the class-book used in Maynooth, teaches that ' the 
Church has a power of dispensing in vows and oaths.' This the 
author attempts to show from the words of Eevelation, which confer 
the prerogative of the keys in binding and loosing, and which, he 
concludes, being general, signify not only the power of absolving 
from sin, but also from promises and oaths."* 

* Edgar's Variations. 



PRACTICE— CORRUPTION. 307 

Dens, in his theology, now the most popular stand- 
ard, perhaps, in the Church of Borne, says : 

" The superior, as the vicar of God in the place of God, remits to a 
man the debt of a plighted promise. * * * * * It is dispensed in 
God's name.'" He furthermore teaches that "a confessor should 
assert his ignorance of the truths which he knows only by sacramental 
confession, and confirm his assertion, if necessary, by oath. Such 
facts he is to conceal, though the life or safety of a man or the 
destruction of the State, depended on the disclosure. The confessor," 
he says, " is questioned and answers as a man. This truth, however, 
he knows not as man but as God " ! 

Aquinas, Cajetan, Bernard, etc., etc., teach this 
" doctrine of devils." Aquinas says, "When a king 
is excommunicated for apostasy, his vassals are, in fact, 
immediately freed from his dominion and from their 
oath of fealty : for a heretic cannot govern the faithful." 
"A debtor," says Bernard, " though sworn to pay, may 
refuse the claim of a creditor who falls into heresy or 
under excommunication. The debtor's oath implies 
the tacit condition that the creditor to be entitled to pay- 
ment should remain in a state in which communication 
with him would he lawful " ! 

" Eugenius TV., in 1444, induced Ladislaus, king of Hungary, to 
break his treaty with the Sultan Amurath, though confirmed by the 
solemn oaths of the king and the sultan on the Gospel and the Koran. 
His Holiness, on this occasion, introduced a variety into the system 
established for the encouragement of perjury, by executing his plan 
by proxy. Julian, clothed with legatine authority, mustered all 
his eloquence to effect the design ; and represented, in strong colors, 
the criminality of observing a treaty, so prejudicial to the public 
safety and so inimical to the holy faith. The pontiff's vicegerent, 
in solemn mockery, dispensed with the oath, which, being sworn 
with infidels, was, like those with heretics, a mere nullity. ' I ab- 
solve you,' said the representative of the representative of God, 



308 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

' from perjury, and I sanctify your arms. Follow my footsteps in 
the path of glory and salvation. Dismiss your scrupulosity, and 
devolve on my head the sin and the punishment.' The sultan, it is 
said, displayed a copy of the violated treaty, the monument of papal 
perfidy, in the front of battle, implored the protection of the God Oi 
truth, and called aloud on the prophet Jesus to avenge the mocker 
of his religion and authority. The faith of Islamism excelled the 
casuistry of Popery. The perjurers, whom Moreri calls Christians, 
1 falsified their oath/ took arms against the Turks, and were defeated 
on the plains of Varna."* Ladislaus was slain and a large portion 
of his army. 

The subjects of Henry VIII. and of Queen Eliza- 
beth, were absolved from their oaths of allegiance. 
Henry IV., of Germany, was not only excommunicated, 
but Gregory VIII., to show himself a god and make 
the emperor's humiliation and ruin complete, swept 
away his dominions and subjects with a single sen- 
tence : "/absolve all Christians from the obligations of 
the oath which they have taken or shall take to him, 
and I forbid any one to obey him as king" ! Verily, " he 
spake as a dragon." Gregory is a canonized saint be- 
fore whom the Romanists of this land bow the knee ! 

Popes, and Councils, and theologians teach, and the 
faithful reduce the precept to practice, that the goods of 
heretics may of right be confiscated. Kings are dethroned 
and their dominions given to another. The wealthy 
are seized and immured in the dungeons of the Inqui- 
sition, and their property taken to enrich the "Holy 
Office."f There are thousands of instances on record 
of persons of wealth, against whom no crime could be 

* Edgar's Variations. 

t Several rules of the Inquisition, the reader will recollect, have 
reference to confiscation. 



PKACTICE — CORRUPTION. 309 

-alleged, in some cases exemplary Bomanists, who have 
been imprisoned and burned alive, through avarice and 
revenge. Can anything be more at variance with the 
holy precepts of the Bible ? Can anything be more 
profoundly corrupt? Any people, much less a pro- 
fessing Church, who, in precept or practice, can receive 
or entertain for a moment such a " doctrine of devils," 
have certainly found the lowest deep in the " horrible 
pit" of depravity. And then to promulgate and prac- 
tice this robbery — piracy — in the name of God and 
religion, language fails, utterly fails, to describe its 
enormity, and fancy to portray its hideousness. 

The Celibacy of the Priests, and the Confessional, are 
a cause and means of corruption. 

From the extreme delicacy of this subject and the 
brief space for its discussion, it will be impossible to 
give the reader a glimpse of its profound depths and 
dark windings, and almost illimitable extent. A full 
view, however, a thorough exhibition, would freeze 
him with horror, and, with damnable plots and murdered 
innocence, thrill his heart with anguish. The record 
is with Him before whom nothing is hid, and that day, 
"for which all other days were made," will reveal all. 

Of the law of celibacy, as in contravention of the law 
of God, as emphatically made known in nature and 
Eevelation, I do not purpose to speak, except in its 
effects as seen in and through the confessional. 

I will give, first of all, the confessions of a French 
Priest, who, after struggling against the temptations 
constantly thrown in his way, in the confessional, and 
surveying the corruptions around him from this source, 
became convinced that " Mother Church" is the great 



310 THE GEE AT APOSTASY. 

apostasy, and turned him to the pure Gospel preached 
by Protestants. 

" It is not my intention," he says, " to repeat here all the accusa- 
tions so justly made against Catholic Priests, but only to reveal, to 
publish in the light, perhaps for the first time, how they defraud the 
poor* deluded people who trust to them. I am bold to say aloud, 
that Protestants have nothing yet upon this important matter so 
precise as what I am about to say. I have confessed priests and 
laymen of every description, a bishop (once), superiors, curates, 
persons high and low, women, girls, boys. I am, therefore, fitted to 
speak of the confessional. 

" The confession of men is a matter of high importance in political 
matters, to impress their minds with slavish ideas; but, not to repeat 
what I have already stated on this subject in my discourse, I refer 
the reader to it. As for other matters, confessors endeavor to give a 
high opinion of their own holiness to fathers and husbands, that they 
may be induced to send to the confessional, without any fear, their 
wives and daughters ; because, doubtless, should fathers and husbands 
know what passes at the confession-box between the holy man and 
their wives and daughters, they never would permit them again to 
go to these schools of vice. But priests command most carefully to 
women never to speak of their confession to men, and they inquire 
severally about that in every confession. 

" The confession of the female sex is the great triumph, the most 
splendid theatre of priests. Here is completed the work which is 
but begun through all their intercourse with women ; for all our 
relations with them begin from their birth and continue till their 
death. In their baptism we sprinkle their heads with holy water, 
at their death their grave ; and the space comprised between those 
two epochs is filled by a thousand ecclesiastical duties. The more I 
think of this matter, the more I remember this sentence : 'Priests, 
in taking the vows of renouncing marriage, engage themselves to take 
the wives of others. 1 

"So soon as the first light of reason has appeared in their tender 
minds, we have girls at our confessional ; and here, with all the re- 
sources of cunning and lessons of theology, we sow the seeds of our 
future power in their hearts, the foundation of our future desigDS. 



PEACTICE — CORRUPTION. 311 

Those young girls, from seven years of age, come and kneel with all 
the innocence, the purity, the inexperience of childhood — beautiful as 
the lilies of the valley, of which our Saviour speaks in the Gospel ; 
they come, sent by their mothers, by the orders of the priest, who 
watches his prey with eager eyes ; they come with all the fear and 
respect of their age for the man of God. He, seeing in them the 
future tools of his passions, fills their minds with prejudices, repeats 
to them that he is the minister of heaven, that they must look to 
him, revere him, almost worship him as a God ; he accustoms their 
mind to obey him absolutely and blindly, to believe him infallible — 
in short, a divine oracle. Thus he gives to their thoughts the direc- 
tion he pleases ; he prepares his batteries ; he informs them upon 
subjects which they ought never to know. At first they do not un- 
derstand those lessons at so early an age ; but by-and-bye they bear 
their fruit when developed by time. Thus confessors instruct those 
girls from seven, or even six, years of age ; for the youngest are the 
best. At ten years old they come to catechism. In those long 
instructions he explains diffusely, three or four times a week, the 
vileness and filthiness in that shameful book, which they learn by 
heart. As a preparation to the Lord's Supper, at the end of their 
year of catechism, he confesses them much oftener than usual ; they 
make a general review of their whole life. When he gives them the 
absolution which purifies their conscience and reconciles them to 
God, he reveals to their mind what they owe to their confessor for 
such a favor. In the afternoon of this same day, at one of the most 
gorgeous ceremonies of the Catholic Church, the general communion 
of boys, the confessors, at the renovation of the vows of baptism 
strictly commands them not to neglect the holy confession, for if 
they do they will be lost. Thus young girls, well indoctrinated and 
bound to their confessor, are not heedless enough to abandon his 
orders ; they come again to the confessional, through custom and 
habit, with the same simplicity, and entertaining the same respect 
and fear of their spiritual father, as in their childhood ; they kneel 
many times in the vestry, without the confessional, before a man in- 
flamed with passions — a man, perhaps, who has for a long time 
fought against himself, and who yet bears evil in his heart ; before 
a man, perhaps, who has long since prepared his work, and now is 
ready to profit by it ; before a man, honest and pure, perhaps, at 



312 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

first, but who being a man, a son of Adam, may not be able to resist 
the temptation. And I ask, is it possible, humanly speaking, for 
him, a priest, to remain pure, when at twenty-five or thirty years of 
age he is either shut in the vestry or in the confessional with a young 
woman who reveals to him the secrets of her heart as she knows 
thvm herself according to our rules, so that he, the spiritual physi- 
cian, may be able to see and to judge — with a woman who, being 
herself human, and not an angel, speaks for hours to a young priest 
of her temptations, her passions, her secret thoughts, &c. ? I say, is 
it possible for human virtue to keep itself pure, not only for a day, 
a week, a month, but during years, and for the whole life ? 

" Let not a Catholic say to me, that these are the reasonings of a 
corrupt man, of a bad priest ; let him not say that God can do what 
man cannot ; and other similar reasons which, I know it well, priests 
always give to explain their pretended virtue. Those reasons a 
common Catholic may be satisfied with ; but I, a priest, cannot be. 
No ; I cannot ; I know too well the matter ; and I answer, first, 
that I was no more inclined to evil, nor more liable to yield to 
temptation, than others — (for God knows that I never seduced any 
one through my ministry) . I was only a man, like others, designed 
by the Creator for connubial happiness according to his word itself : 
1 It is not good for man to be alone ; I will make a helpmeet for 
him ;' designed, I say, for a union intended by the all-wise and be- 
nevolent Creator. Can the laws of Popery prevail over the wisdom 
of the Almighty ? Let not a Catholic say that a priest in this situ- 
ation is helped by the special grace of God ; for I answer, by the 
words of Christ himself : ' Whosoever loves danger, he shall perish 
in it.' And if God has promised his grace, it is not granted in an 
unnatural, immoral situation, directly against His institution. 

"As soon as the young girl — for I speak peculiarly of their con- 
fession — enters the confessional, ' Bless me, father,' she says, kneeling, 
and crossing herself, * for I have sinned :' and the priest mumbles : 
i Dominus sit in ore tuo et in corde, tuo ut confitearis omnia peccata 
tuo. 1 i The Lord be in your heart and lips, that you may confess all 
your sins.' If she is an ugly, common country girl, or woman, she 
is soon dispatched ; but, on the contrary, if she is pretty and fair, 
the holy father puts himself at ease ; he examines her in the most 
secret recesses of her soul ; he unfolds her mind in every sense, in 



PKACTICE — COKEUPTION. 313 

every manner, upon every matter. This is the way which theology 
recommends us to follow in our interrogatories : 'Daughter, have 
you had bad thoughts V ' On what subject ?' l How often V &c. 
1 Have you had bad desires ? What desires ? ' ' Have you committed 
bad actions ? With whom ? What actions V I am obliged to stop. 
Many times the poor ashamed girl does not dare answer the ques- 
tions, they are so indecent. In that case, the holy man, ceasing his 
interrogations, says to her : ' Listen, daughter, to the true doctrine 
of the Church : you must confess the truth, all the truth, to your 
spiritual father. Do you know that I am in the place of God — that 
you cannot deceive Him ? Speak, then ; reveal your heart to me, 
as God knows it ; you will be very glad when you will have dis- 
charged this burden from your mind. Will you not?' 'Yes.' 
' Begin ; I will help you ;' and then begins such a diabolical expla- 
nation as is not to be found but in houses of infamy, I suppose, or 
in our theological books. This is so well known, that I have often 
heard of wicked young men saying to each other, ' Come, let us go 
to confession, and the curate will teach us a great many corrupt 
things which we never knew ;' and many young girls have told me in 
confession that, in order to become acquainted with details on these 
matters pleasing to their corrupt nature, they went purposely to the 
confessional, to speak about it to their spiritual father. Sometimes 
I have heard the confessions of young girls, not above sixteen years 
of age, who explained to me such disgusting things, with a precision, 
a propriety (or, rather, impropriety) of terms, that, when I asked 
them where they had gathered all this strange learning, they seemed 
as much astonished at my question as I was at their confession, and 
said to me : ' Why, father, our former confessor taught us all this, 
and commanded us never to omit these details, otherwise we should 
be damned.' I replied to them : ' I pray you never use such again ; 
they are unworthy of a Christian mouth ; you misunderstood your 
confessor.' I learned afterwards that those misguided persons left 
my confessional because, they said, I was an ignorant confessor, 
who did not confess like others, and who did not cause them to say all. 
"After so many instructions, the young girl is well indoctrinated, 
well fitted to answer either the questions or the purposes of the 
priest. This poison infused in her heart soon infects her whole mind 
and destroys her purity. It is precisely at such a point of time 
14 



314 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

that her cruel foe waits for her. When he sees that she is made 
vicious and corrupt by the teachings of the confessional, he is sure 
of his success." 

This testimony is confirmed by Blanco White, Ho- 
gan, and every priest who has been converted and has 
written on this subject. They assure us, indeed, that 
the half has not been told us — that the " whole degra- 
dation, is unknown"* Escaped nuns tell the same sad 
story. Laymen have proclaimed the same. And Bishop 
Kenrick, in a recent work, not only corroborates it, 
but admits, that in many instances the confessional has 
been a means of seduction and corruption. Hear him : 

" We scarcely dare to speak concerning that atrocious crime in 
which the office of hearing confession is perverted to the ruin of 
souls by impious men under the influence of their lusts. Would 
that we could regard it solely as a conception of the mind and as 
something invented by the enemies of the faith for the purpose of 
slander ! But it is not fit that we should be ignorant of the decrees 
which the Pontiffs have issued to defend the sacredness of this sacra- 
ment."* 

In the decrees of the Pontiffs, to which the bishop 
alludes, no less than nineteen different ways are specifi- 
ed, in which a priest may seduce, or attempt to seduce 
the confessing female in the confessional ! 

Now, can that be a sacrament of the institution ot 
God, in the practice of which men and women are ne- 
cessarily placed in a position and under circumstances 
the most tempting to an indulgence of the worst pas- 

* " Dens' Theology" abounds with directions in obscene language 
touching this very subject. Were I to give a translation, modest men, 
much more women, would be utterly disgusted. I have never seen or 
heard the like. 

t Quoted and translated by Dr. Beeeher. 



PEACTICE — CORRUPTION. 315 

sions of human nature ; and the tendency and effects 
of which are only corrupt and corrupting ? 

At the Council of Trent some of the secular 
princes and some of the clergy drew most graphic 
pictures of the corruptions of the priesthood and of 
the people, and urged with earnest importunity a re- 
form. Celibacy and the confessional were known to be 
the cause and means of that corruption. Says Edgar — 
and Sarpi and Pallivicini both admitted that sad state- 
ments and urgent appeals were made in reference to 
this matter, — 

"Albert, Duke of Bavaria, in 1562, by Augustine, his ambassa- 
dor, depicted in glowing colors, before the Council of Trent, the 
licentiousness of the German priesthood. The contagion of heresy, 
the ambassador said, had, on account of sacerdotal profligacy, 
pervaded the people of Bavaria, even to the nobility. A recital of 
clerical criminality would wound the ear of chastity. Debauchery 
had covered the ecclesiastics with infamy. A hundred priests, so 
general was the contagion, could hardly muster three or four who 
obeyed the injunctions of chastity. The French applauded the am- 
bassador's speech." 

" The Emperor Ferdinand, though without success, applied to 
the Pope, in 1564, for a repeal of the laws against sacerdotal mat- 
rimony. Maximilian also, with many of the German princes, im- 
portuned Pius IV. for the same purpose. The reason urged by the 
emperor was the profligacy of the priesthood. His majesty declared 
that among many of the clergy scarcely one could be found who 
lived in chastity. All, with hardly an exception, were public for- 
nicators, to the great danger of souls and scandal of the people. 
A repeal of clerical celibacy, Maximilian stated, would gratify the 
populace of Bavaria, Bohemia, Silesia, Moravia, Austria, Carin- 
thia, Carniola, and Hungary. All these vast regions would have 
rejoiced in the restoration of marriage among the clergy. 

" The emperor's application was supported by the Popish Priest- 
hood of Germany. These, in maintenance of their petition, alleged 



316 THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

various reasons. The frailty of man ; tho difficulty of abstinence ; 
the strength of the passion that prompts to marriage ; the permission 
of clerical wedlock by the Old and New Testament under the Jew- 
ish and Christian dispensations ; its use, with few exceptions, by the 
Apostles ; the instructions of Dionysius to Pinytus ; the decision of 
the Nicene Council, suggested by Paphnitius ; the usage of the 
Greeks and Latins in the east and west till the popedom of Calix- 
tus— all these arguments the German ecclesiastics urged for the law- 
fulness of sacerdotal matrimony. A second reason the Germans 
deduced from clerical profligacy. Fifty priests, then, these churcl> 
men confessed, could with difficulty afford one who was not a notori- 
ous fornicator, to the offence of the people and the injury of piety. 
Sacerdotal logic and learning, however, were unavailing when 
weighed against pontifical policy and ecclesiastical utility." 

The following are some, among many other reasons, 
given by Popes and Jesuits, against clerical matrimony. 
I desire that the reader, on many accounts, weigh them 
well: 

" Cardinal Eodolf, arguing in a. Koman consistory in favor of 
clerical celibacy, affirmed that the priesthood, if allowed to marry, 
would transfer their attachment from the Pope to their family ana 
prince ; and this would tend to the injury of the ecclesiastical com- 
munity. The holy see, the cardinal alleged, would by this means 
be soon limited to the Koman city. The Transalpine party in the 
Council of Trent used the same argument. The introduction of 
priestly matrimony, this faction urged, would sever the clergy from 
their close dependence on the popedom, and turn their affections to 
their family, and consequently to their king and country. Marriage 
connects men with their sovereign and with the land of their nativ- 
ity. Celibacy, on the contrary, transfers the attention of the clergy 
from his majesty and the State to his Holiness and the Church. The 
man who has a wife and children is bound by conjugal and frater- 
nal attachment to his country, and feels the warmest glow of paternal 
love mingled with the flame of patriotism. His interests and affec- 
tions are entwined with the honor and prosperity of his native land ; 
and this, in consequence, he will prefer to the aggrandizement of the 



PRACTICE — CORRUPTION. 317 

Romish hierarchy or the grandeur of the Roman pontiff. The dear- 
est objects of his heart are embraced in the soil that gave them 
birth, the people among whom they live, and the government that 
affords them protection. Celibacy, on the contrary, precludes all 
these engagements, and directs the undivided affections of the priest- 
hood to the Church and its ecclesiastical sovereign. The clergy 
become dependent on the Pope rather than on the king, or State, 
and endeavor to promote the prosperity of the Papacy rather than 
their country. Such are not linked with the State by an offspring 
whose happiness is involved in the prosperity of the nation."* 

What, then, shall we say of the hundreds of priests 
in this country who are not even bound to the soil, the 
State, by nativity ? Their allegiance is to a spiritual 
and temporal prince in Europe, and their affections are 
there. 

Facts, stubborn, well-attested facts, sustain the testi- 
mony of converted priests and escaped nuns — that the 
confessional is a means of corruption. 

The city of Eome, the city of churches, and cardi- 
nals, and bishops, and priests — the home of his Holi- 
ness, the fountain of infallibility, is the most corrupt 
city in Christendom. There is one ecclesiastic to every 
thirty-six inhabitants, and over one-third of the children 
bom there are illegitimate. 

TheEev. Dr. Murray reports the following conversa- 
tion which he held with a citizen of Rome, in the Sis- 
tine Chapel, but a few years since : 

" ' What,' said I to a friend, who knows them well, ( what is the 
moral character of these cardinals V His reply astounded me. i It 
is to me amazing,' said he, ' that some of these men can keep up 
even the form of devotion in the presence of one another, when each 
knows that the other keeps three, four, or five mistresses. Some of 

* Edgar's Variations. 



318 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

them are the greatest deba/uchees in Eome ; they go from the bed 
to the altar, and from the altar to the bed. I know what I say. I 
have mixed and mingled with those persons. I have heard wicked 
and loose young men talk in my day ; but the most loose and lewd 
conversation I ever heard in my life was from these men. Noble 
Eomans have told me with tears in their eyes, that, because of the 
lewdness of these priests, and their way of ferreting out everything 
at the confessional, they have lost confidence in the virtue of their 
wives, their mothers, their sisters, and their daughters." 

This is the sad state of things all oyer Italy. His 
late Holiness, Gregory XVI., who in 1832 announced 
to the world that the Church could not err, lived with 
a woman not his wife, and left two daughters behind 
him ! Human life, as well as character, is at a sad dis- 
count in the " Holy City ;" assassinations are almost of 
nightly occurrence. Spain is a restless mass of corrup- 
tion. Mexico has sunk almost beneath redemption. 
And in every country in which the Church of Rome 
holds undisputed sway, where her false doctrines and 
corrupt practices work their legitimate results, the 
priests and people are corrupt, and can but be corrupt. 
Celibacy and the confessional, if nothing else, will keep 
them so. " Wherever we meet Popery," says Wylie, 
" there we meet moral degradation, mental imbecility, 
indolence, improvidence, rags, and beggary. No ame- 
liorations of government* — no genius or peculiarities 
of race — no fertility of soil — no advantages of cli- 
mate, seem able to withstand the baleful influence of 
this destructive superstition. It is the same amid the 
exhaustless resources of the New World as amid the 
civilization and arts of the old — it is the same amid 

* In what country has Popery ameliorated government ? Can the 
friends of this enemy of man tell me ? 



PRACTICE-— CORRUPTION. 319 

the grandeurs of Switzerland and the historic glories 
of Italy, as among the bogs of Connaught and the 
wilds of the Hebrides." 

Now, if the Protestant clergy of this enlightened 
land and day, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Baptists, 
and Methodists, the most high-minded, honorable, pure 
class of men in the world — men in whose integrity, and 
piety, and holy zeal for the cause and glory of God, I 
have implicit confidence — if they were to bow their 
necks to the law of celibacy, and take this unnatural 
vow, and establish confessionals all over the land, and 
each were to hear the private confessions, day after day, 
of all his charge; if lovely young ladies were to go, 
each alone, and kneel before them and tell all their de- 
sires, emotions, temptations and acts — desires some- 
times towards the very minister to whom she is con- 
fessing — and if everything said and done in the 
confessional, were to be kept a profound secret, upon 
the pain of fearful anathemas, the Inquisition and 
eternal death — God is my judge, — in less than twelve 
months my confidence would be shaken in many, very 
many of them, if not all. Men, ministers, are not an- 
gels ; and when they voluntarily place themselves in a 
position and under influences of evil, they have no 
promise of the grace of God to sustain them. They 
must fall. So is it with Eoman Catholic priests. They 
are naturally as good as other men — no better, how- 
ever — and doubtless many of them enter the priest- 
hood with good desires and purposes, but alas ! tempta- 
tion, which lives in the very atmosphere they breathe, 
meets them at every turn, and enters their hearts by a 
thousand avenues, overcomes them, and they fall. 



320 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

They may rise — God help them ! — but they fall again. 
" Young women," says White, " kneel before them in 
all the intimacy and openness of confession. * * * 
Love, long resisted, seizes them at length like madness. 
Two, I knew, who died insane. Hundreds might be 
found who avoid that fate by a life of settled, system- 
atic vice." 

" Vice is a monster of such frightful mien, 
That to be hated needs but to be seen ; 
But seen too oft, familiar with her face, 

We first pity, then endure, then EMBRACE." 

The Church of Eome, then, is corrupt, deeply, fear- 
fully, foully corrupt. And this carries us down to the 
last stage in her fall, in the working of the mystery of 
iniquity ; and, as we stand surrounded by gloom, and 
corruption, and moral death, we see, and feel, and 
know that she is the Great Apostasy. The evidence is 
as clear and as overwhelming from her practice as from 
her doctrines. "The tree is known by its fruits." The 
Church of Eome is idolatrous, intolerant, persecuting, 
Hood-thirsty, and corrupt. 



CHAPTER V. 

SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL SUPREMACY OF THE POPE. 
Spiritual Supremacy. 

As the Church, of Rome departed from the pure faith 
and holy practice of the Apostolic Church, she arrogated 
to herself more and more spiritual and temporal suprem- 
acy. Her claim, indeed, to universal spiritual and tem- 
poral authority has been in almost exact ratio with her 
decline and revelation as the Man of Sin. The Apostle 
had so announced, and his prediction has been fulfilled 
to the very letter. The falling away — the revelation 
as the Man of Sin — the opposing of God — the exalta- 
tion above God and above all that is worshipped, have 
followed each other almost as cause and effect. And 
when she had reached the lowest deep in her false doc- 
trines and her corrupt practice, she reached the high- 
est point in her exaltation, and assumed claim to be as 
God, and above God. To trace fully the history of 
her unparalleled decline and proud exaltation would 
be a profitable, but a melancholy task. This, in part, 
has been done in the preceding discussion. I purpose 
now to glance at and refute her claim to spiritual and 
temporal supremacy. And the former, in its import- 
ance and logical connection, first : 

That the Pope, as the supreme head and impersona- 
14* ( S21 > 



322 THE GEEAT APOSTASY. 

tion of the Church, of Eome, claims spiritual suprem- 
acy, is not an open question. All, in and out of her 
pale, admit that such a claim is set up. A wide differ- 
ence of opinion, however, exists among Popes, and 
Councils, and theologians, as to the nature and extent 
of the spiritual authority of the Pontiff. No less than 
four theories are earnestly advocated by as many par- 
ties.* The Church is, notwithstanding, infallible and 
a unit ! 

"One party confers a mere presidency; and the 
second an unlimited sovereignty on the Roman Pon- 
tiff. The third makes the Pope equal — and the fourth 
superior, to God." 

Cardinal Filaster and the Council of Constance, Du 
Pin and Paolo, with many others, maintain that the 
Pope "is only the first among the bishops;" that he 
"is chief, not in authority, but in order, as the presi- 
dent of an assembly;" that he has the "first place," 
and that a general Council is superior to him. The 
Gallican Church, in the days of her power and glory, 
adopted and advocated this theory. But Bossuet, and 
Fenelon, and Du Pin, have departed, and on none has 
their mantle fallen. Not a single great name now ad- 
vocates it. It is dead. The despot, Pius IX., and the 
despot, Napoleon III., have buried it beyond the hope 
of a resurrection. 

The second theory maintains that the Pope is a sov- 
ereign, in the place of Jesus Christ on earth, possessing, 
because delegated by Him, unlimited power. "He is 
clothed," says Edgar, "with uncontrolled authority 
over the Church, the clergy, Councils, and kings. He 

* The advocates of each theory split into many shades of diiferenco. 



SPIRITUAL SUPKEMACY. 323 

has a right, both in a legislative and executive capa- 
city, to govern the universal Church, and to ordain, 
judge, suspend, and depose bishops, metropolitans and 
patriarchs, throughout Christendom. These receive 
their authority from the Pope, as he receives his from 
God. He possesses a superiority over general Councils, 
which, for legitimation and validity, require pontifical 
convocation, precedency and ratification. He is the 
supreme judge of controversy, and, in this capacity, 
receives appeals from the whole Church. His chief 
prerogative is infallibility." He cannot err, because he 
is in the place of God, and as God. Binius, Bellar- 
mine, Cajetan, Lainez, Bonaventura, &c, &c, and Gre- 
gory VII., Boniface VIII., and Paul IV., and a hundred 
other Popes, with the whole fraternity of the Jesuits, 
and the Ultramontane party, maintain this dogma. It 
is the doctrine of this fallen Church throughout the 
world at this day. 

The Jesuits, with Lainez and Bellarmine at their 
head, teach that the Pope is equal to and above God. 
Innocent III. says: "The Pope holds the place of the 
true God." "The Pope and the Lord," it is affirmed, 
" form the same tribunal, so that, sin excepted, the 
Pope can do all that God can do." " He possesses," 
says Durand, "a plenitude of power, and none dare 
say to him, any more than to God : Lord, what doest 
thou ? He can change the nature of things, or make 
nothing out of something and something out of no- 
thing."* Lainez taught that he "has the power of 
dispensing with all laws, and the same authority as 
the Lord." Bellarmine says : " The Pope can transub- 

* Quoted by Edgar. 



324 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

stantiate sin into duty, and duty into sin" The canon 
law, to which, as I have shown, every Eomanist in 
this country subscribes, says : " The Pope, in the plen- 
itude of his power, is above right, can change the sub- 
stantial nature of things, and transform unlawful into 
lawful, and dispense with right"* And " Stephen, 
Archbishop of Petraca, in his senseless parasitism and 
blasphemy, declared, in the Council of Lateran, that 
Leo possessed l power above all powers, both in heaven 
and in earth.'' "f 

Unlimited spiritual supremacy, then, is claimed by 
the Eoman Pontiff, and by the Eoman Catholic Church 
in and through him as her head. This suprem- 
acy, it is affirmed, is of diyine appointment, and is 
taught in, and sustained by, the infallible Word of God. 
Hence it follows, it is further affirmed, that the Eoman 
Catholic Church is the only true Churcfr, and that out 
of her pale there is no salvation. I repudiate the claim 
and deny every affirmation. I have already demon- 
stated that she is fallen and corrupt — is the great apos- 
tasy. I propose now to show that her claim to suprem- 
acy is without scriptural warrant — is 'a fallacy. 

The advocates of this doctrine have fully relied on 
the language of our Saviour to Peter to sustain it: 

"And I say also unto thee, thou art Peter, and upon this rock I 
will build my Church ; and the gates of hell shall not prevail 
against it."J 

This text has occasioned a world of controversy > and 
has been a common battle-field ever since the bishops 

* See Edgar, p. 159. He gives, in a note, the original. t Ibid. 
% Matthew xvi. 18. 



SPIRITUAL SUPREMACY. 325 

of Eome assumed to be the successors of St. Peter, and 
head and lord of Christ's visible Church. It is ad- 
mitted by Popes and theologians, that if this passage 
does not sustain their claim, it has no solid foundation 
in the Scriptures. It is as groundless, then, as a correct 
exegesis will show, 

"As the baseless fabric of a vision." 

The whole controversy, except the transmission of 
power, turns upon the meaning of the term "rock? 
Does this term "rock" refer to and mean Peter? The ad- 
vocates of papal supremacy affirm it does. This is their 
exposition. The Church of the living God, then, is 
built upon a mere man. Does the term rock refer to, 
and mean Christ? We affirm it does. This is the 
Protestant view. The Church, then, is built upon 
Christ, the Lord ; and the gates of hell shall not prevail 
against it. 

The context throws light upon this text, and will 
materially aid us in arriving at the truth. Indeed, it 
is, in part, the key that unlocks its meaning. "Jesus 
asked the disciples, ' Whom do men say that I, the Son 
of man, am ? And they said, Some say that thou art 
John the Baptist ; some Elias, and others Jeremias, or 
one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom 
say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and 
said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. 
And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art 
thou Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not re- 
vealed it unto thee, but mv Father which is in heaven. 
And I say unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this 
rock I will build, my Church" &c. 



326 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

The object of the Saviour, it must be clear to every 
mind, was to draw out the confession from the disciples 
that he was the Messiah, the " foundation stone" that 
God had promised to "lay in Zion." * When Peter, 
speaking for all the rest, had confessed this, He replied 
to him, and through him to the others, " Upon this rock 
I will build my Church." The rock, Peter had con- 
fessed Christ to be, and not Peter, who was not the 
subject of conversation, and, I believe, never in this 
connection and sense, entered into the thoughts of Jesus 
or his disciples. If the conversation had been about 
Simon and the name Jesus had given him, Peter, a 
stone, and the Saviour had said, " Thou art Peter, and 
upon this rock," &c, some doubt might have been left 
on the mind as to whom the rock would have referred. 
But even then, the tenor of Scripture would have de- 
manded a better exegesis, one in conformity with itself. 
By the rock, then, the Saviour must have meant him- 
self. This preserves the connection, the sense, and 
confirms the confession of Peter. 

" When we come to look at the parts of the verse more closely, 
we are further strengthened in this conclusion. If Christ had meant 
to say, " thou art Peter, and on thee will I build my Church," why 
did he not say so ? This would have been explicit and free from all 
ambiguity, and would, moreover, have suggested the play on the 
words as much as the present form. Or, if he meant that Peter 
should be the Eock, why did he not use the exact form of his name, 
and address him as such ? The natural form of expressing such a 
thought would have been, " thou art Petros, and on thee, the Petron, 
I will build my Church." But, instead of this, he changes the pro- 
noun of the second person, for one of the third, as if to say, " I am 
no longer speaking to you, but speaking of another ;" and changes the 

* See Isaiah xxviii. 16. 



SPIRITUAL SUPREMACY. 327 

masculine trerpog, for the feminine Tcerpa, and inserts the demon- 
strative pronoun ravr% of the third person, instead of the personal 
pronoun ov, of the second person. Why these changes, if he meant 
the same person ? Why change the gender, the number, the case, 
and the word itself, if he designed to refer to the person he had just 
spoken of? If it be replied, as it sometimes is, that Christ used the 
Syriac Kepha, and that no such distinction exists in that language 
as in the Greek, this will not remove the difficulty, for why should 
Matthew then make this distinction ? Does not this very fact prove, 
that, knowing the possibility of this misinterpretation, the Evangelist 
sought to prevent it by adopting this change of person, and inserting 
the demonstrative ravrrf, as if to point us to a remoter antecedent 
than rrerpov ? If it be said that irerpov was changed for rcerpa, 
because the former means only a stone, or a part of a rock, while 
the latter means a rock itself, we reply, that this very fact is itself 
suggestive of the true interpretation. Peter was really only a part 
of the Kock, one of the living stones, and Christ only meant so to 
represent him, while he presents himself the immovable Eock of 
Ages, as the only true foundation for his Church. As the name 
Petros was so given because of the petra, and not the petra because 
of the Petros, so it was here. Peter having confessed the great fact 
of an incarnate Messiah, which was the Rock on which the Church 
rests, Christ suggests to him the fact, that he is a part of that Rock, 
a living stone that rests upon it, and then goes on to exhibit the 
design with which he drew out this confession, namely, to declare 
the other great fact, that the Church was to rest on an atoning 
Messiah as to its real, invisible foundation, and that it was by 
preaching this great doctrine that it was to be built up as a visible 
institute in the world. This interpretation rescues the passage from 
that aspect of disjointedness and superficiality that it has on the 
other interpretation, and brings out a climax worthy of the effort to 
draw out this confession, and makes Christ thus declare as his design 
in this drawing out, what was the real foundation on which the 
Church invisible rested, and what was to be that great doctrine by 
preaching which the Church visible was to be set up as an organiza- 
tion in the world. If we take Peter as the Rock, we have Christ 
first calling out the great doctrine of his Messianic character, then 



323 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

descending to the comparatively trivial fact that Peter was to be 
one of the first preachers of this doctrine, then returning to the 
other great doctrine of the perpetuity of the Church, which has an 
obvious connection with the Rock, if Christ is that Rock, but none 
if Peter was ; for, with all his boldness, stability was never a promi- 
nent trait of this great Apostle. To us, then, the one interpretation 
belittles and disjoints the passage, while the other makes it a noble 
and fitting expansion of the great doctrines on which the Church 
rests, invisibly, in the purpose of God, visibly, in its actual and his- 
torical development. 

" If it be objected, that it is unnatural for Christ to address Peter 
and then give no more intimation than the words ' on this rock,' 
that he was speaking of himself, we reply, that even granting that 
there was no more intimation than this, the form of speech would 
not be unauthorized. ' Destroy this temple,' &c, is an instance in 
which he referred to himself, in a similar sentence, with much less 
intimation of the fact than is contained here. The use of the pro- 
noun referring to the remoter rather than to the nearer antecedent, 
is too common in the New Testament to need any elaborate vindica- 
tion here. See avrov in John viii. 44, and others in Acts ii. 22, 
23 • iii. 15, 16 ; 2 Thess. ii. 8, 9, &c, &c. 

" If it be objected, as Alford does in his recent edition of the 
Greek Testament, that being a pillar, a foundation, &c, is always 
used of a person in the New Testament, and never of a doctrine, we 
might ask him what was meant when it is said in Heb. vi. 1, " Not 
laying again the foundation of repentance, &c, of the doctrine of 
baptisms," &c. ; (see also Rom. xv. 20 ; 1 Cor. iii. 11, 12, &c. ;) but 
it is sufficient to remind him of the fact that Christ is a person, and 
that, therefore, this text would really be no exception to his remark. 
But there is another fact which he needs also to have brought to 
his notice, in regard to the naming of persons as foundations in the 
New Testament, that there is no case where a single person is named 
as the foundation of the Church, except Christ. And it is, perhaps, 
not unworthy of notice, that the verb here used is not ^efieXtoo), 
to lay a foundation, which would have described the act of Peter as 
a mere founder of the Church, or a part of the foundation, but the 
wider word olnodojjieG), to build a house, which describes a continuous 



SPIRITUAL SUPREMACY. 329 

work, one which is still going on, and going on, not on the founda- 
tion, Peter, but on the Eock, Christ." * 

Christ is declared to be, in the Old and New Testa- 
ments, the Eock on which the Church is built ; her 
foundation, and the source of her life and peace, sta- 
bility and power. 

"He is the Rock, His work is perfect." " Then he 
forsook God who made him, and lightly esteemed the 
Rock of his salvation" (Deut. xxxiii. 4, 15.) "Because 
thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast 
not been mindful of the Bock of thy strength" (Isaiah xvii. 
10.) " Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a 
tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation — he 
that believeth shall not make haste" (Isaiah xxviii. 16.) 
"The stone which the builders rejected, the same is be- 
come the head of the corner." (Matt. xvi. 42.) " Be it 
known unto you all, that by the name of Jesus Christ of 
Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from 
the dead, even by Him doth this man stand here before 
you whole. * * * * This is the stone which was 
set at naught of you builders, which is become the 
head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any 
other." (Acts iv. 10-12.) "For they stumbled at 
that stumbling-stone ; as it is written, Behold, I lay in 
Zion a stumbling-stone, a Bock of offence : and who- 
soever believeth on Him shall not be confounded." 
(Bom. ix. 32, 33.) "To whom coming as unto a living 
stone disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and 
precious; ye also" — did not Peter embrace himself? — 
" as lively stones are built up a spiritual house." (1 Peter 

* Quoted from the January number of the Quarterly Review of 
the M. E. Church, South, 1856, by the kind consent of the author, 
Rev. T. V. Moore. 



330 THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

ii. 4.) " For they drank of that spiritual Eock that fol- 
lowed them — and that Rock was Christ'''' (1 Cor. x. 4.) 

Christ, then, and not Peter, is the Rock, the founda- 
tion of His Church. This exposition preserves the 
harmony of. Scripture ; while that of Eome breaks it, 
and sounds a note of jarring discord. - Peter the Eock, 
indeed ! Peter — Pius IX. — the foundation and Lord 
of the Church of God ! 

But Christ is not only declared to be the Eock on 
which the Church is built, but the only foundation of 
the Church and of the Apostles and Prophets. 

11 Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, 
which is Jesus Christ." (1 Cor. hi. 11.) 

"Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and 
foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of 
the household of God ; and are built upon the founda- 
tion of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself be- 
ing the chief corner-stone; in whom" — Jesus — " all the 
building fitly framed together groweth unto a holy 
temple in the Lord." (Eph. ii. 19-21.) 

Now the Apostle teaches here, in this beautiful 
figure of the Church — her foundation — growth — unity 
— perpetuity — happiness — that the Apostles and proph- 
ets are not, in any sense, her foundation ; that she is not 
built on them, or on any one of them, but on \hs founda- 
tion OF the Apostles and Prophets — Jesus Christ. They 
are not a foundation, but themselves rest on one — Peter 
as well as James and Matthew, &c. Christ is the root 
of David. Can David, then, be any part of that root? 
The Church is " built on the foundation of — not on 
the Apostles and Prophets, being a foundation. Peter, 
then, is not the foundation of the Church — is not the 



SPIRITUAL SUPREMACY. 331 

Eock — but Christ Jesus the Lord, He reposed and 
built on Christ, not on himself, and is a living stone, 
with all true believers, in the " spiritual building" that 
'groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord." 

Peter and the other Apostles never understood our 
Lord, in the text under review, to mean, by the term 
Eock, Peter ; that the Church was to be built on him, 
and that he was clothed with spiritual supremacy. In 
all their conversations and labors, as detailed in the 
Gospels, in the Acts, and in the Epistles, no intimation 
of this kind is given, but constantly and everywhere 
the contrary. Peter was not above the other Apostles, 
in order or office, but only their equal. So they say ; 
so the Holy Ghost teacheth. How shall we account 
for this, if the exposition of Eome be correct? To say 
the least of it, all the Apostles were derelict in duty — 
have kept back a momentous truth — cheated Peter out 
of his honors, who was totally ignorant of his position 
and authority, or who was a thousand times more sub- 
missive and humble than those who have claimed to 
be his successors for the last thousand years ! 

Finally, the exposition we have given is sustained by 
the earliest and most learned Fathers who have written 
upon this question, and by many able theologians and 
doctors of Eome. 

Justin Martyr says : 

" Christ bestowed on Simon the name of Peter, because, by the 
revelation of his heavenly Father, he confessed Him to be the Son 
of God." 

Augustine says : 

" The Church is founded npon a rock, whence Peter derived his 
name. For the rock was not so called from Peter, but Peter 



332 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

from the rock, just as Christ is not called from a Christian, but a 
Christian from Christ. Accordingly, the reason why our Lord 
said : ' Upon this I will build my Church,' was, because Peter had 
said : ' Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.' Upon 
this rock which thou hast confessed, he means to say, I will build 
my Church. For the Kock was Christ ; upon which foundation, 
Peter himself built, inasmuch as it is said : Other foundation can 
no man lay than what is laid — that is, Christ Jesus." 

Cyprian, Cyril, Eusebius, and Athanasius, held the 
same view. Anselm, Lombard, Pole, Aquinas, and a 
host of others, able, honored sons of Eome, concur in 
this exposision. The acute, the learned Erasmus, was 
astonished "that any person would wrest the passage 
to signify the Eoman Pontiff." The Councils of Nice 
and Constantinople held this interpretation. One 
member in the Council of Trent, Fragus, asserted that 
the Church is built "on the living Stone, the firm and 
divine Rock" "Pope Hadrian, in a letter to the Em- 
press Irene, read and received with acclamation in the 
second general Council of Nice, gave this interpretation. 
The same Pontiff's letter to Tarasius, containing a 
similar statement, was read in this synod, and admitted 
with equal approbation. A similar reception attended 
the letters of Germanicus, concurring with Hadrian, in 
this unerring assembly. All the bishops approved." 
A few other Popes, Celestine, Innocent, Leo, &c, have 
held the same doctrine. 

I submit, then, to the candid reader, if the claim of 
the Eoman Pontiffs to spiritual supremacy, based upon 
this text, is not utterly groundless. It rests upon a 
false interpretation — it is a fallacy. And this is the 
main pillar, the foundation-stone of the mighty super- 
structure. It is " airy nothing." 



SPIRITUAL SUPREMACY. 333 

The text, "I will give unto thee the keys," equally 
fails them. 

This passage, as I have shown, has reference simply 
to the preaching of the Gospel. The call of God to 
preach, is the power to loose and bind. And this, not 
absolutely, but as an ambassador, as an instrumentality : 
God binds and looses. And this power, as is clear 
from the New Testament, was conferred upon,, and ex- 
ercised by all the Apostles alike, and is now by all true, 
faithful ministers. The supremacy of Peter, then, is 
not indicated here. And Pius IX. has no authority, 
from this text, to lord it over the Church, and the con- 
sciences and souls of men. The Man of Sin was to 
exalt himself in the temple of God. His claim was to 
be, and is a human invention. 

But if it were demonstrated — albeit, this never can 
be— that Peter was the foundation and supreme head 
of the Church, it would remain to be demonstrated 
that he was bishop of Eome, or that he was ever at 
Eome. Was Peter Pope of Eome? Where is the 
proof ? A question so momentous must have evidence 
to sustain it, as clear as the being of God, the divinity 
of Jesus, the heavenly origin of our holy religion. It 
would have been written by inspiration in lines of 
living light. 

Gahan, a Eoman Catholic Historian, whose history is 
now before me, says : 

" St. James the Elder being appointed the particular bishop of 
Jerusalem, St. Peter removed his apostolic see to the city of Anti- 
och, the capital of Syria and all the East, where the followers of 
Christ's doctrine were first distinguished by the name of Christians. 
They increased there amazingly, and formed a very numerous Church, 



334 THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

of which St. Evodius and St. Ignatius were the first bishops after 
the removal of St. Peter from Antioch to Home ; for this zealous 
apostle, not content with founding the great Churches of Jerusalem 
and Antioch, resolved to set up the standard of the cross of Jesus 
Christ, in the very metropolis of the world. Hence he went to Rome 
in the year of our Lord 42, being the second year of the reign of the 
Emperor Claudius, and planted a very flourishing Church in that 
city, which he chose for the chief seat of his labors, and made his 
own particular see, and in that quality the capital of Christendom, 
and the first and most eminent of all other particular Churches, on 
account of the authority and preeminence of its chief pastor." 
" Though the Church of Rome was in a very flourishing condition 
before the arrival of St. Paul, it made such acquisitions by the 
labors and preaching of this Apostle, that he is considered, jointly 
with St. Peter, a principal founder of it. Hence, St. Irenceus, in the 
following century, calls the Church of Rome the greatest and most 
ancient Church, founded and established by the two most glorious 
Apostles, Peter and Paul." • ' • * « Nothing can be 
more incontestable in history, than that St. Peter was the founder 
and first bishop of the see of Rome. In this the concurring testi- 
mony of all ancient Christian writers, down from St. Ignatius, the 
disciple of this Apostle, is unanimous. Eusebius, the parent of 
Church history ; St. Jerome ; and the old Roman Calendar, pub- 
lished by Bucherius, say, that St. Peter held the see of Rome 
twenty-five years."* " It was from Rome that St. Peter wrote his 
two epistles to the converts he had made during the seven years 
he was bishop of Antioch. He indeed called that city Babylon, as 
St. John also does in the Apocalypse, because Rome was then the 
the chief seat both of the Empire and of Pagan idolatry, as for- 
merly Babylon had been, but as Babylon in Chaldea was at that 
time nothing but a heap of ashes,f the best interpreters by Babylon 
understand heathenish Rome." 

This is all the evidence that can be adduced that 

* This would make Peter's martyrdom to have taken place in 67. 
t This is a mistake, the city of Babylon was not then a heap of 
ashes. 



SPIRITUAL SUPREMACY. 335 

Peter was the first Pope of Rome ; the only proof 
touching this point to support the mighty fabric of 
Papal supremacy. It is tradition and dogmatism; 
nothing more. Irenasus, in the close of the second cen- 
tury, or beginning of the third, says: " The Church of 
Eome " was " founded and established by the two most 
glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul" And this assertion, 
based on tradition, and without giving the least intima- 
tion that Peter was Pope of Rome and the supreme 
head of the Church throughout the world, is taken as 
proof that he was. It as clearly proves that Paul was. 
Indeed, the evidence is ten-fold stronger to prove that 
Paul was Pope of Rome, than that Peter was ! Euse- 
bius, though he follows him, is more indistinct and 
uncertain than Irenaeus. He does not hint that Peter 
was supreme head of the Church — a Pope.* But I will 
lay before the reader an argument from the pen of the 
Rev. Dr. Moore, clear, convincing, and perfectly satis- 
factory in refutation of this tradition. It is just what 
I desire to have written, and I gladly adopt it : 

"Was Peter the first bishop of Eome? We answer, most em- 
phatically, no. There is not the slightest evidence of this fact ; 
but rather the contrary. 

" (1.) Peter was not a bishop of any Church at all, and could 
not be by the very nature of his office. The apostolic office was an 
itinerant superintendence, established by Christ for extraordinary 
purposes, and designed to be temporary in its character. This tempo- 
rary character is proved by the fact, that one qualification of an 
Apostle was that he must have seen Christ, and thus be a witness 

* See pp. 63, 82. " Peter appears,'' 1 he says, " to have preached,'' 
&c, and coming to Rome was crucified. * * * After the mar- 
tyrdom of Paul and Peter, Linus was the first that received the 
episcopate of Rome. Not one word concerning the primacy of Peter* 



336 THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

of the great fundamental fact of Christianity, the resurrection of 
Jesus from the dead. (See Acts i. 18 ; 1 Cor. ix. 1, &c.) This 
general superintendency and itinerancy made it impossible for an 
Apostle to be the bishop of any particular Church ; for the two 
offices were as incompatible as a general travelling agency for the 
Post Office Department of the United States, and the postmaster- 
ship in a particular city. 

" But, if the bishop of any particular Church, it would have 
been of a Jewish Church or Diocese, and not a Gentile ; for we are 
informed expressly by Paul, that the apostleship of the circum- 
cision was assigned to Peter. Hence, if bishop at all, it would 
have been of a Jewish Church, unless his province was changed; 
a fact of which there is not the shadow of proof. 

" (2.) But if it had been possible for Peter to be the bishop of 
any particular Church, where is the proof that he was bishop of 
Eome? 

" In the first place, it is by no means certain that Peter was ever 
at Kome. As this is a decisive point, if it be established in one 
way, it is necessary to examine carefully the evidence on which the 
opinion of Peter's residence at Rome rests, and wc shall be amazed 
at the dwindling and vanishing character of it, as we try to seek 
out and grasp it. What, then, is the evidence on which it is be- 
lieved that Peter was ever at Rome ? 

" There are one or two dates that can be fixed with tolerable cer- 
tainty, and that will aid us in this investigation. It is commonly 
conceded, so universally, indeed, as to need no argument, that Peter 
was killed in the Neronian persecution. This, according to Tacitus, 
(Annal. xv. 44,) broke out A. D. 64 ; for it followed the burning 
of Rome immediately, which was July 19, A. D. 64 ; (lb. xv. 41.) 
Here, then, is one fixed point from which to reckon backward. If 
Peter was at Rome at all, it was before A. D. 64. We have his 
history from the resurrection of Christ to the meeting of the Synod 
in Jerusalem, A. D. 50, very fully, and not a word is said of his 
having visited Rome. Had he done so, we would surely have some 
hint of it ; and the utter absence of all allusion to it proves that it 
was not done. We reach another step of evidence from the epistle 
to the Romans, written A. D. 58. There is no allusion to Peter's 
having visited Rome, but the very contrary. Paul says expressly, 



SPIRITUAL SUPREMACY. 337 

as a reason for desiring to visit Rome, that he wisLed not to build 
on another man's labors, or trench on another man's sphere ; (Rom. 
xv. 20, 21 ; 2 Cor. x. 15, 16.) Such language would have been 
impossible, if Peter had visited and labored at Rome before this 
time. In A. 1). 61, Paul was taken to Rome as a prisoner ; but 
the book of Acts says not a word of Peter being there, a thing utterly 
impossible, if he had been there. Between A. D 61 and A. 1). 63 
or 64, the various epistles of Paul from Rome, were written : Phile- 
mon, Colossians, Ephesians, Philippians, and 2 Timothy. In 
delivering salutations from various persons, he never alludes to 
Peter. This is proof positive that he could not have been there 
during that time. 2 Timothy, written about A. D. 64, just before, 
or during the Keronian persecution, states expressly, that Luke 
alone, of the apostolic laborers, was at Rome ; (2 Tim. iv. 11.) 
This brings us to within a few months of the date of the death of 
Peter, and yet not a trace is found of his being at Rome. 

" Where was he at this time ? The only intimation we have of the 
place of his labors is, the salutation in his first Epistle, (chap. v. 
13) " the Church that is at Babylon, elected together with you 
saluteth you ;" literally, " the co-elect in Babylon, saluteth you." 
It is plain from this salutation that, at the writing of this epistle, 
Peter was at Babylon, wherever that was. Xow, as this epistle 
was written near the Xeronian persecution (allusion to which is 
made in chap. i. 7, iii. 13-16, iv. 12, &c), we have the place of 
Peter about A. E). 64, very shortly before his death. Where, then^ 
was Babylon ? But two opinions are worth examining : one, that 
it was, as it naturally would occur to every reader, the place thus 
known all through the previous ages of the world and books of the 
Bible ; the other, that it was Rome, so called symbolically, as it is 
in the Revelation. It is marvellous that Popery should adopt this 
symbolical interpretation, when she thus countersigns her own con- 
demnation in the interpretation of the Revelation. It is like buy- 
ing a sword at the price of the arm that is to wield it. But in the 
utter absence of all proof of her claims, Rome, with judicial blind- 
ness, will grasp at those that carry with them her own death-war- 
rant. But we cannot yield this point to her, even though it allows 
her to write her own name in the terrible woes of the Apocalypse. 
The reasons are : (1.) That Rome was not called Babylon until after 
15 



388 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

the writing of the Bevelation, not having yet earned that title by 
her bad preeminence in guilt. To have so called her then, would 
have been unintelligible. (2.) Such a designation was useless for 
any conceivable purpose of concealment as is alleged, for no one 
was compromised by it in any way that required concealment. (3.) 
It would be most unnatural in such a connection. Had the Apostle 
been denouncing woes on the place whence he was writing, there 
would have been a propriety in the use of such a symbolical name. 
But when he was simply dating his epistle; when all the other 
names, Pontus, Cappadocia, &c, are geographical ; when his 
object was to let all the Church know where this place was, and 
not to conceal it ; when he was writing the simplest didactic prose, 
and not prophecy, poetry, invective, or the language of passion at 
all, the use of so symbolical and so unusual a term as this, before 
its use was introduced by John in the Kevelation, is inconceivable 
to us, if not incredible. The main reason, with most interpreters, 
for adopting this symbolical view is, the improbability that Peter 
should be at Babylon. It is commonly assumed, that Babylon was, 
at this date, a deserted ruin, just as it is now. But this is a mistake. 
The old city may have been greatly deserted, but not wholly so ; 
and the surrounding region, called also by the name Babylon, re- 
tained still a considerable population, and precisely the population 
that would attract the attention of the Apostle of the circumcision, 
Josephus tells us, (Antiq. lib. xv. chap. iii. § 1,) that "not a few 
myriads of this people" (the Jews) dwelt " about Babylonia" in this 
time. The same fact is attested in Antiq. lib. xv. ch. ii. § 2 ; xviii. 
ch. ix. g 1 ; and Philo. Op. ii. 578, 587. Many of the Jews had 
never returned from the exile, but remained there : a most interest- 
ing portion of the race, and one that would naturally attract the 
attention of a Jew. It was, also, a great centre of ecclesiastical 
influence ; so that, whilst Jerusalem gave the name to one of the 
Talmuds, Babylon gave its name to the other. Hence, after labor- 
ing at the seats of Jewish influence in Jerusalem and throughout 
Palestine, nothing would be more natural than that Peter should 
turn his steps towards those of his nation that were dwelling in the 
fertile satrapy of Babylonia, and, perhaps, in the yet inhabited por- 
tions of the ancient city. This fact would account for the silence 
of the book of Acts concerning his labors from A. I). 50 to A. D. 



SPIEITUAL SUPKEMACY. 339 

64 ; a fact difficult of explanation, if those labors were expended 
in Palestine or Europe. Peter laboring at Babylon, James at 
Jerusalem, and Paul at Eome, would seem to be the most natural 
apportionment that could be made of the field before them. It is 
no valid objection to this view, that Peter speaks of Paul's writings 
in his second Epistle (iii. 15), and mentions a Marcus in his first 
(v. 13), who has been supposed to be the evangelist Mark. Some 
of Paul's writings had been before the Churches for twelve years, 
and could have been seen in many other places than Eome, and 
and there is no other proof that " Marcus my son" was the evan- 
gelist, than the wholly uncertain one of an identity of name. 
Hence we conclude, that the literal and natural interpretation of 
the word Babylon is the true one, and that Peter, at the time of 
writing this epistle, A. D. 64 or 65, was at Babylon. But this 
brings us within a few months of the alleged date of his death, 
which occurred, probably, soon after the writing of his second 
epistle ; (see Pet. i. 14.) This epistle must have been written soon 
after the first, as is intimated, ch. i. 13-15 ; iii. 1. Hence, we have 
but a few months, at farthest, for this alleged visit to Rome ; a 
visit which, considering the immense distance between Babylon and 
Rome, is hardly credible. 

" We might pause here ; but that we may search this thing to the 
bottom, we will follow the advocates of Popery into the testimony 
of the fathers on this point, and determine its meaning : 

" The first authority that is adduced is Clement of Rome, in his 
epistle to the Corinthians. We will quote the passage. He has 
been urging them to constancy by the example of the Old Testa- 
ment worthies, and now adduces those of the New : ' Let us set be- 
fore our eyes the holy Apostles : Peter, by unjust envy, underwent 
not one or two, but many sufferings ; until at last, being martyred, 
he went to the place of glory that was due to him,' $ 5. (Apostolic 
Fathers, Ed. Wake, p. 148.) This is absolutely all that he says of 
Peter. There is not one word of where he suffered, or when he 
suffered, or that he ever set his foot in Rome. And yet this is 
brought forward as a proof ! 

" The next witness is Ignatius. In his epistle to the Romans, g 4, 
he says : " I do not as Peter and Paul command you. They were 
Apostles ; I, a condemned man ; they were free, but I am even to 



340 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

this day a servant.' (id. ut sup. p. 213.) And yet this is brought 
to prove that Peter was at Rome ! Surely the cause must need sup- 
port that can bring such testimony to prove a fact ; the simple 
statement of a good man that he was not invested with apostolic 
authority to write to a Church, to prove that Peter was once at 
Rome ! 

" The only distinct testimony that we reach is a letter of Dionysius 
of Corinth, A. D. 176, more than one hundred years after Peter's 
death, and only a fragment of it preserved in Eusebius, A. D. 325. 
Granting that this letter is authentic (a fact that is questioned) , what 
does even it testify ? We quote the passage. Alluding to Peter and 
and Paul, he says : \ For both taught alike in our Corinth, having 
planted us, and both alike also in Italy, in the same place ; having 
taught alike, they suffered martyrdom at (or about) the same time.' 
Now, if Dionysius is to be understood as asserting that Paul and 
Peter labored together in person, planting the Church of Corinth, 
and then travelled and suffered together in person at Rome, he states 
in the first instance what he must have known to be untrue ; for Paul 
alone planted the Church of Corinth, (see 1 Cor. iv. 15 ; iii. 6-10; 
ix. 1, 2 ;) and, therefore, is wholly unreliable as to the second, which 
indeed is also untrue, as to Peter's accompanying Paul to Rome ; a 
fact we know from Acts xxviii. not to have occurred. The only 
other point of his testimony left is, that Peter died at Rome, 
which is greatly shaken by the fact we know all the others to have 
been untrue. If, however, we suppose Dionysius only to have meant 
that the influence of Peter's teaching went with Paul to Corinth 
and Italy, they teaching the same things, and that they died about 
the same time, it will be true ; but it will no more prove that Peter 
was at Rome, than that he founded the Church of Corinth. la 
either case it is of no avail. If the witness is true, he testifies 
what is of no avail ; if false, his testimony can no more establish 
this point, that is doubtful, than the others which we know to be 
certainly false. Hence, although we have come to the beginning of 
the third century, we have not yet found one reliable witness to the 
fact that Peter was at Rome at all. When we enter the third cen- 
tury, we find the opinion beginning to prevail that Peter died at 
Rome, though nothing yet about his episcopacy. Irenaeus, A. D. 
218, (Adv. Her. Lib. IH. \ 1,) asserts the martyrdom of Peter at 



SPIRITUAL SUPREMACY. 341 

Eome, but Irenaeus asserts a great many other things, as every 
reader of him will see, that show him to be a credulous and unre- 
liable man. But after this date we find the belief very general, so 
that we freely concede it. 

" The fact, however, that we press is, that there is not a particle 
of evidence for a hundred years after the death of Peter, that it 
was ever dreamed that he had been in Rome ; that it is not until 
A. D. 176 that a doubtful testimony occurs ; and that is not until 
the first quarter of the third century, that we find clear evidence 
that this fact was believed, and then only in connexion with many 
admitted falsehoods. 

" We therefore submit that the allegation that Peter ever was 
at Rome is wholly unproved as yet, as a simple fact of history, and 
therefore unfit to stand as the basis of such a theory as that which 
rests upon it. And this further fact is evident, that, in any event, 
the Church that claims to be infallible must rest on the testimony 
of fallible men, and that testimony of the most fallible character. 

" The main difficulty in the way of this conclusion is, the existence 
of this tradition in the Church. How did it arise, if it had no 
foundation in fact? It seems to have arisen, partly, from the sym- 
bolical interpretation of the name Babylon, in the first epistle, and 
partly from a mistake of Justin Martyr, who asserted that a statue 
of Simon Magus was worshipped in Rome as a god, under the name 
of Semo Sancus. This was soon coupled with the story of Simon 
in Acts viii., and a story invented that Peter had encountered him 
at Rome, which then assumed the form that he was in Rome in the 
second year of Claudius, A. D. 42. This is plainly contradicted by 
the book of Acts, and the whole basis of the story destroyed by 
the discovery, in A. D. 1574, of the very statue to which Justin 
refers in making excavations in the bed of the Tiber. It was then 
found that it was a statue, not to Simon the magician, as it was 
supposed by Justin, but to Semo Sancus, a Roman-Sabian deity. 

" When, therefore, it is remembered, that for a hundred years 
after Peter's death, we find not a syllable of this tradition; that 
then the symbolical interpretation began to creep in with the in- 
creasing attention paid to the study of the Apocalypse ; and that 
we do not find the tradition fully developed until the time of 
Irenaeus, early in the third century, we can see how naturally the 



342 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

tradition arose, and how little it can be relied upon as a historical 
fact. There is absolutely no clear, satisfactory proof, that Peter 
ever was at Eome ; the probability clearly is, that he died at 
Babylon. 

" But suppose these huge chasms filled up, and the fact made 
certain that Peter did visit Rome, and did die there, where is the 
proof that he was bishop of Rome ? This fact was not at first 
coupled with the tradition of his visit to Rome. It did not appear 
until some time afterwards. At first it was asserted that Linus 
was ordained the first bishop of Rome, by Paul and Peter. This is 
the statement of Irenaeus (Adv. Heres, Lib. III. § 3), and also of 
Eusebius in one place (Ecc. Hist. Lib. III. g 2, 4). Tertullian 
assigns the first episcopate to Clement (De Script. Hser. c. 32), in 
contradiction of the others. The first statement of Peter being 
the bishop of Rome, is made in a book acknowledged to be spuri- 
ous, and written as a sort of pious fiction, the Recognitions of 
Clement. This assertion did not obtain credence for some years ; 
indeed, not until about the middle of the third century, when we 
find traces of it in the writings of Cyprian, A. D. 258, and a claim 
set up for the first time by a bishop of Rome, (Stephen, the 22d 
bishop of the series,) to be a successor of Peter. This claim was 
not generally recognized by the Latin Churches for a century after it 
was made, so that it was not until the fifth century that it was 
generally admitted that Peter was the first bishop of Rome. 
Against the probability of its truth are the facts, that it was 
utterly unknown to the early Church, utterly unknown to the 
Scriptures, inconsistent with the relations of Paul to the Church 
at Rome, and at variance with the nature of the apostolic offioe, 
and the division of territory agreed upon with Paul, in which 
Rome would fall to the charge of the Apostle of the Gentiles. 
Hence we reject this fiction as a mere invention of a later age, 
wholly untenable and incredible." 

But if it were demonstrated that Peter was clothed 
with spiritual supremacy over the whole Church ; that 
he was constituted, by Christ, his sole Yicar on earth ; 
that he was at Eome, and Pope of Eome, it does not 



SPIRITUAL SUPREMACY. 343 

follow that this power and prerogatives were transfer- 
able, much less that they were actually transferred. 
It would remain to be demonstrated that Linus, and 
Gregory, and all the bishops or Popes of Eome, good 
and bad, have been clothed, successively, with the 
same power and prerogatives ; that Pius IX. is 
supreme head of the Church, and sole Vicar of Jesus 
Christ, because, if it were proved, Peter was, eighteen 
hundred years ago. Where is the evidence of this ? 
A doctrine so momentous should — must have the 
clearest and most ample proof to command our faith 
and obedience. It should, and doubtless would, have 
been written by the finger of God, on imperishable 
tablets. But this is not the case. There is not a par- 
ticle of clear proof to support this dogma, but the 
contrary. 

" What were the prerogatives of the twelve Apostles, 
exclusively possessed by them, as distinguished from 
all other Gospel ministers whatever?" They were the 
following : 

"Immediate vocation. Gal. i. 1: 'Paul, an apostle 
(not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and 
God the Father, who raised him from the dead.') 

" The ordination of an Apostle, in the strict sense of 
the word, was not only immediately by Christ himself, 
without any imposition of hands, but it was complete 
at onceP The inspired history of Paul, who, I believe, 
was Christ's chosen successor to Judas, demonstrates this. 

" Apostles were taught the Gospel by immediate 
revelation" Gal. i. 12: "Fori neither received it of 
man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation 
of Jesus Christ." 



344 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

" They were infallible teachers of it to others.' 7 They 
were infallible teachers because inspired. They taught 
what God revealed, nothing more, nothing less. Tra- 
dition was no rule of authority in divine things with 
them. 

They were prophets. 

" Apostles had the power not only of working mira- 
cles, but also of communicating miraculous powers to 
others. Acts viii. 14-19; xix. 6; 1 Tim. i. 6*"* 

Can these prerogatives be transferred ? Have they 
been transferred ? Was Alexander VI., that monster 
of iniquity, inspired, infallible, a prophet; and was 
he clothed with the power of working miracles, and of 
communicating that power to others ? If he was inspired, 
it was by the devil ; and if he had the power of working 
miracles, it was of the kind of the witch of Endor. If, 
then, these prerogatives were not possessed by him and 
handed down to his successors, they are not possessed 
by Pius IX. The chain is broken ; and the claim to 
the Apostleship, the authority and prerogatives of St. 
Peter, is a baseless assumption. 

In his usual happy, clear style, Dr. Moore shows 
that, if it were demonstrated that St. Peter was clothed 
with supreme spiritual power, and that that power 
could have been transferred to others, there is no evi- 
dence, but the contrary, to prove that it was actually 
transferred to, and possessed by, the bishops and Popes 
of Eome. Hear him : 

" We demand proof of its actual transfer. Where is the docu- 
ment, the fact, or the person that testifies to such a transaction ? 
Here is the most tremendous grant of power ever made on earth, 

* Power's Apostolical Succession, pp. 41, 42. 



SPIRITUAL SUPREMACY. 345 

if made at all, and yet there exists not one line of recorded evidence, 
not a single document to prove this amazing fact ! Indeed, we have 
proof of the very contrary. Home herself did not claim this power 
for centuries after the grant is alleged to have been made. Du Pin, 
a Roman Catholic historian, admits this. He is also compelled to 
admit another fact that is still more embarrassing, that this claim 
of supremacy was actually condemned by the bishop of Rome, as 
late as A. D. 588. The Byzantine Emperor Mauritius had bestow- 
ed, or at least permitted the title of universal patriarch to be taken 
by John, patriarch of Constantinople, A. D. 586. Gregory, bishop 
of Rome, opposed this assumption very bitterly.* Du Pin's lan- 
guage describing this transaction is : 'St. Gregory does not only 
oppose this title in the patriarch of Constantinople, but maintains 
also that it cannot agree to any other bishop, and that the bishop 
of Rome neither ought nor can assume it.' 

" In a letter to the Emperor Mauritius, arguing against the per- 
mission of the title, Du Pin represents him as saying that Peter 
was not called universal Apostle, ' that the title of universal 
bishop is against the rules of the Gospel, and the appointment of 
the canons , that there cannot be an universal bishop, or the au- 
thority of all the others would be destroyed or diminished, &c.' 
(B. 4, Ep. 32.) Here is an inextricable dilemma. If Gregory was 
infallible, he condemns all succeeding Popes, who have assumed this 
supremacy ; if he was mistaken in this matter, then he was fallible, 
and the chain is broken. In either alternative, Popery perishes, as 
to its peculiar claims. If Gregory, near the opening of the 7th 
century, knew nothing of this absolute supremacy, we may safely 
affirm that it never existed. The claims and title of universal bishop 
were not assumed by the bishop of Rome until A. D. 606, when 
the infamous and wicked Phocas gave Boniface III. this title, in 
reward for services that he rendered to him in his unholy designs. 
The title thus assumed in name, expressed no reality for nearly two 
centuries, when Nicholas and John, in the ninth century, began a 
series of measures which Gregory TIL, the great Hildebrand, devel- 
oped in the eleventh century into that gigantic system of despotism 
that we now find it. Thus it took a thousand years to establish this 

* This I have shown under the head of Infallibility See page 91. 

15* 



346 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

claim of baseless and usurped authority, which now asserts this claim 
as the grant of Jesus Christ. 

" Such, then, is the historical basis of the Church of Eome, a 
tissue of assumptions, none of which are demonstrably true, some of 
which are demonstrably false. It rests on the positions, 1. That 
Peter was primate of the Apostles ; 2. That he was the first bishop 
of Rome ; and 3. That this primacy was transferred to all his suc- 
cessors. In regard to the primacy of Peter, we have shown that it 
could not be granted in the designation of Peter as a foundation, 
the conferring on him of the keys of the kingdom of heaven, or the 
injunction to feed the sheep, for all these things belong equally to 
the other Apostles ; that there is no trace of this primacy in the 
words or acts of either Christ or the Apostles, or the primitive 
Church ; in the New Testament epistles, in the theory of Church 
government taught there, in the claims of Peter himself, or the 
conduct of John after his death ; but on the contrary, that there 
are facts and statements in all these sources utterly inconsistent 
with this alleged primacy. Hence, the first basis is gone. The 
second, that Peter was the first bishop of Rome, is equally baseless ; 
for he was not, and could not be a bishop at all ; and above all, 
could not be the bishop of Rome ; for it is not yet proved that he 
ever was at Rome at all, and if he was, it could only have been at 
the very close of his life for a short time ; and if ever at Rome, 
that there is not a shadow of proof that he ever was bishop of 
Rome, but rather the contrary. But if all these impossible points 
were made out, the third step is still wanting, that he transferred 
this primacy to the bishop of Rome and his successors. Such an 
awful power would not be transferable at all, or if so, must be made 
out by the clearest evidence. Not a particle of such evidence 
exists ; the claim was not set up by the bishop of Rome himself for 
centuries, and was not admitted by the Churches generally until the 
ignorance and darkness of the middle ages made any ghostly usurp- 
ation an easy task. Hence we come to the most impregnable 
conclusion, that the Romish Church, instead of being founded on a 
Rock, is founded on a lie, and stands forth the most gigantic pile 
of fraud and imposture that the world ever saw." 

And that the Pope, I may add, instead of being an 



TEMPORAL SUPREMACY. 347 

Apostle, possessing the authority and clothed with the 
prerogatives of St. Peter, is verily, truly Antichrist. 

In the assumption, then, of spiritual supremacy, an- 
other link of evidence is added to the fearfully-over- 
whelming array, that the Church of Eome is the great 
Apostasy. The dark picture drawn by the pencil of 
inspiration eighteen hundred years ago is filled up in 
all its outlines and mighty proportions, and we see 
before us the Man of Sin sitting in the temple of God, 
showing himself that he is Grod. 



Temporal Supremacy. 

That the Pope of Eome claims temporal supremacy 
has been denied by some of the bishops and priests, 
and laymen, and their parasites in this country. The 
denial, sometimes, doubtless, ignorantly made, is at 
war with the well-established and imdeniable facts of 
history. If it were denied that the Pope possesses tem- 
poral power over all governments, there would be, so 
far as we are concerned, no occasion of controversy. 
He has never been clothed, either directly or indirectly, 
with such power, by the King of kings and Lord of 
lords. But the negation is of the claim. Does, then, 
the Pope claim temporal supremacy ? 

This question, I am aware, has become, to some ex- 
tent, a political one. It is such per se, of necessity. 
But with it, purely as such, I have nothing to do. I 
write not as a politician. The able statesmen of "our 
own, our native land," will carefully examine every ques- 
tion affecting our political rights, and guard and defend 
the sacred ark of our liberties. I enter not their arena 



348 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

and meddle not with their rights. But with this ques- 
tion as it effects civil and religious liberty, and the 
Church of God, and the salvation of souls, I have to do. 
It is my right and mj duty, as a member of the great 
family of man, a citizen of this happy Union, and a 
Christian minister, to examine it thoroughly, to vindi- 
cate the truth of history, and show the unscriptural 
assumptions and dangerous doctrines of the Church of 
Eome, in this and all other things. 

Popes have claimed, and Pius IX. now claims, su- 
premacy over temporals. 

Popes have exercised, and Pius IX. now tries to exer- 
cise, such power. 

The Church of Rome has taught, and does now teach, 
that this claim is of divine origin, and hence valid ; and 
she has and does now, sustain and defend the Papacy in 
its exercise. 

These are facts which lie buried in the history of the 
past, and live in the history of the present ; and some 
of them form epochs in the annals of nations. To bring 
them out and lay them before the reader will be amply 
sufficient to refute the denial of interested parties that 
the Eoman Pontiff claims temporal supremacy. 

And first of all, it may be necessary to observe that 
spiritual supremacy, in the sense of Eome, logically and 
necessarily carries with it temporal supremacy. 

This is taught by Popes and Councils, and scattered 
up and down on the pages of a thousand Ultramontane 
and Jesuit writers. To go no farther back — and the 
nearer home and to our own day, perhaps, the better 
— Brownson, in his Eeview for April, 1854, p. 191, 
says: 



TEMPORAL SUPREMACY. 349 

" Now, although we do not say that the Church commissions the 
State, or imposes the conditions on which it holds its right to gov- 
ern, yet as it holds under the law of Christ, and on conditions im- 
posed by that law, must have the power to take cognizance of the 
State, and to judge whether it does or does not conform to the con- 
ditions of its trust, and to pronounce sentence accordingly ; which 
sentence ought to have immediate practical execution in the tem- 
poral order, and the temporal power that assists it is not only 
faithless to its trust, but guilty of direct rebellion against God, the 
only real sovereign, Fountain of all law, and source of all rights in 
the temporal order as in the spiritual. She must have the right to 
take cognizance of the fidelity of subjects, since they are bound to 
obey the legitimate prince for conscience' sake ; and therefore of 
the manner in which princes discharge their duties to their sub- 
jects, and to judge and to declare whether they have or have not 
forfeited their trusts, and lost their right to reign or command the 
obedience of their subjects. The deposing power, then, is inherent 
in her as the spiritual authority y as the guardian and judge of the 
law, under which kings and emperors hold their crowns and have the 
right to reign ; for in deposing a sovereign, absolving his subjects 
from their allegiance, and authorizing them to proceed to the choice 
of a new sovereign, she does hut apply the law of Christ to a particular 
case, and judicially declare what is already true by that law. She only 
declares that the forfeiture has occurred, and that subjects are 
released from their oath of fidelity, who are already released by the 
law of God." 

" We have seen that she," the Church, " has even direct temporal 
authority by divine right; but the power we are now asserting, though 
a power over temporals, is itself, strictly speaking, a spiritual power, 
held by a spiritual yerson, and exerted for a spiritual end. The tem- 
poral order by its own nature, or by the fact that it exists in the 
present decree of God only for an end not in its own order, is subjected 
to the spiritual, and consequently every question that does or can arise 
in the temporal order is indirectly a spiritual question, and within 
the jurisdiction of the Church as the spiritual authority, and there- 
fore of the Pope, who as supreme chief of the Church, possesses 
that authority in all its plenitude. The Pope, then, even by 



350 THE GEEAT APOSTASY. 

virtue of his spiritual authority, has the power to judge all temporal 
questions, if not precisely as temporal yet as spiritual — for all tem- 
poral questions are to be decided by their relation to the spiritual 
— and therefore has the right to pronounce sentence of deposition 
against any sovereign, when required by the good of the spiritual 
order." 

This language is clear, and cannot be misunderstood. 
It reveals fully, but not too strongly, tlie doctrine of 
Papists touching this question of supremacy. The 
spiritual authority necessarily carries with it the right 
to govern the temporal, as the greater the less. Hence, 
if the Pope had spiritual jurisdiction in this country — 
sdij a clear numerical majority — he would depose Pres- 
ident Pierce or his successors, if u required by the good 
of the spiritual order" Of the good or evil he is the sole 
judge. The President, the citizens, could have no 
voice. The higher-lawism of some demagogues has 
been emphatically and properly stigmatized as emi- 
nently dangerous ; but here is a higher-law doctrine 
openly avowed in this country, and sanctioned by a 
million and more of citizens of this Republic, which 
would not simply trample upon constitutional rights in 
liberating a few hundreds of thousands of slaves, leav- 
ing master and slave free, but would make slaves, hope- 
less slaves of the millions of the free and the brave. I 
repeat what I have before said, that no man thoroughly 
imbued with the spirit of Popery is capable of repub- 
licanism. If a colony, or a nation were composed of 
such men as Mr. Brownson, would there be any free- 
dom among them, except to do the bidding of " his 
Holiness" and the priests ? 

" If the Church is the spiritual power," he continues, " with the 



TEMPOEAL SUPEEMACY. 351 

right to declare the law of Christ for all men and nations,* can any 
act of the State, in contravention of her canons, be regarded as a 
law ? The most vulgar common sense answers, that it cannot. Tell 
ns then, even supposing the Church to have only spiritual power, 
what question can come up between man and man, botween sover- 
eign and sovereign, between subject and sovereign, or sovereign and 
subject, that does not come within the legitimate jurisdiction of the 
Church, and on which she has not, by divine right, the power to 
pronounce a judicial sentence ? None ? Then the power he (the 
Pope) exercised over sovereigns in the middle ages was not a usurp- 
ation, was not derived from the concession of princes, or the consent 
of the people, but was and is hers by divine right ; and whoso resists 
it rebels against the King of kings, and Lord of lords. This is the 
ground on which we defend the power exercised over sovereigns by 
Popes and Councils in the middle ages." 

In the Civilta Cattolica, from which I have already 
quoted, of Nov., 1854, we have this doctrine sent out 
to the Eoman Catholic world. The Jesuit, or Cardinal, 
or Pope, who wrote it, says : 

" As the Church commands the spiritual part of man directly, 
she therefore commands the whole man, and all that depends en man : 
for it is the property of man to live according to the spirit, accord- 
ing to reason. This is the efficient cause of that wonderful power 
which the Church has always exercised (though under many differ- 
ent forms) in this world ; which she exercises still ; and which is so 
incomprehensible to mere worldly politicians. She was but a babe in 
the cradle in Palestine, when she attacked in the Sanhedrim the 
chiefs of that people whose inextinguishable vitality has for two 
thousand years been the puzzle of the philosophers. From the 
darkness of the Catacombs she dictated laws to the subjects of the 
Emperors, abrogating decrees, whether plebeian, senatorial, or im- 
perial, when in conflict with Catholic ordinances. Emerging from 

* The Pope has not by divine right, or by any other right, spiritual 
supremacy, and therefore has no right to declare the law of Christ for 
all nations ; and hence the conclusion, that his temporal power falls to 
the ground. 



352 THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

the Catacombs to rule over the Roman world, she led the auto- 
crats by the hand in reforming their statute-books and their ad- 
ministration. Did they resist ? The Church unyielding, saw them 
thrown at her fe p t either penitent or crushed. * * * * * Did 
the Christian emperors become insolent? The Church armed 
against them their very electors. To every rampant heresy the 
Church knew how to oppose the power either of the peoples or of 
their princes ; and when these supports seemed at last to have been 
snatched from her by a universal rationalism, behold ! there is a 
sudden turning back of both : of the nations, fearing an unbridled 
royal power, and proclaiming the necessity of a supreme spiritual 
power; of the princes, beginning to understand, at the light of a 
bloody communism, that the principles of the Church are a firmer 
foundation for their thrones than bayonets, which must always be 
intrusted to a part of the people" 

" Thus, amid all formal changes, the power of the Church is always 
immense. If any doubt it, let them listen to her enemies, who, for 
so many years, have been proclaiming that the ' Church is dead ;' 
that ' she remains only as an empty and impotent shadow.' They 
would not vaunt thus against a mere nonentity : the fearless do not 
boast. The truth is, that the only power dreaded by the dema- 
gogues and the ungodly is that very Church which they unite in 
attacking, calling it ' clerical party,' ' Jesuitism,' ' theologism,' or 
what not. And they are right in that fear. To-day, as in all time, 
the Church commands the spiritual part of man ; and in ruling over 
the spirit she rules the body, rules over riches, over sciences, over 
affections, over interests, over associations — rules, in fine, over mon- 
archs and their ministers. Petty politicians may conclude that the 
Church has lost her power, because she does not enlist artillery, 
cavalry, and infantry ; but the truth is, that the artillery, cavalry, 
and infantry of the Catholics are in the hands of the Church, inas- 
much as in her hands are the mind, the reason, and the power of every 
true Catholic." 

Yes indeed, in the hands of the Church, of the Pope, 
are the mind, the reason, the power of every true Roman 
Catholic. And they can be nowhere else, as papists, or 



TEMPORAL SUPREMACY. 353 

they are guilty of moral treason against the Vicar of 
Jesus Christ upon earth, and of God himself, as Popes, 
and Councils, and Jesuits teach them. And the mo- 
ment " they are anywhere else, if Rome is in power, 
they are thrown at her feet, either penitent or crushed.' 1 '' 
Now with these declarations before his eyes, declara- 
tions published under the sanction of every bishop 
and archbishop in the United States, and under the eye 
and approbation of Pius IX. and the Cardinals at the 
city of Rome — can any man doubt that the Pope claims 
temporal power ? 

The fourth Council of Lateran, under Innocent III., 
in 1215, in the third canon, now a part of the law of 
the Roman Catholic Church, for it has never been re- 
pealed, thus teaches this doctrine : 

" Heretics shall, after their condemnation, be delivered over to the 
secular powers. The temporal lords are to be admonished, and, if 
it should be found necessary, compelled by censures to take an oath 
in public, to exterminate heretics from their territories. If the 
temporal lord, being thus required and admonished by the Church, 
shall refuse to purge his land from heretical pravity, he sliall be ex- 
communicated by the metropolitan and his suffragans : on his neglect 
during twelve months, to give them satisfaction, this shall be notified 
to the Pope, and upon such information, his Holiness shall announce 
the offender's vassals to be absolved by law from their obligation of 
fealty, and expose his lands to be occupied by Catholics, who, having 
exterminated the heretics from it, shall possess them without any 
contradiction, and preserve them in the purity of the faith." 

Gregory VII. w r as the first who fully and unequivo- 
cally proclaimed the supremacy of the Pope over all 
temporals, and exercised it. It was his aim and the 
ambition of his pontificate, "to bring," says Du Pin, 
"all the crowned heads under his subjection, and to 



354 THE GEEAT APOSTASY. 

oblige them to hold their kingdoms as fiefs of the holy 
see, and to govern them at his discretion." He excom- 
municated Henry IV., declared his throne vacant and 
his subjects absolved from all oaths of fealty. He 
thus modestly speaks of his supremacy, and lords it 
over the greatest monarch of his day : 

" It has pleased thee, Peter, chief of the Apostles, and does 
please thee, that the people of Christendom, committed specially to thee, 
should render obedience to me. In this confidence, for the dignity 
and defence of the holy Church, in the name of Almighty God, the 
Father, Son, . and Holy Ghost, I depose from imperial and royal 
administration King Henry, son of Henry, sometime emperor, who 
too boldly and rashly hath laid hands on thy Church. I absolve all 
Christian subjects to the empire from that oath whereby they are wont 
to plight their faith unto true Kings; for it is right that he should be 
deprived of dignity who doth endeavor to diminish the majesty of the 
Church: 1 

In a letter to Hermann, Bishop of Metz, August 25, 
1076,* in which he calls the Gallican doctrine " mad- 
ness" and "folly," we have the following: 

" We, adhering to the statutes of our holy predecessors, do, by 
apostolic authority, absolve those from their oath who are bound 
by fealty or oath to persons excommunicated, and prohibit them, 
by all means possible, to observe their fealty." 

Innocent III. in 1210 deposed Otho IV. From his 
bull of deposition I take the following : 

" The King of kings and Lord of lords, Jesus Christ, has so 
established the royal power and the priesthood in the Church,"that 
the royal power is sacerdotal and the priesthood royal, as Peter in 
the epistle and Moses in the law testify, placing over all, one whom 
he has ordained as his vicar on earth ; so that to Him (Christ), every 
knee is bowed in heaven and on earth — so also to him (the Pope), 

* He was Pope about twelve years, from 1073 to 1085. 



TEMPORAL SUPREMACY. 355 

all should give obedience, that there might be one fold and one 
shepherd. Him, therefore, the kings of the earth so venerate, that 
they cannot suppose themselves rightly to reign, unless they study 
to serve him (the Pope) devotedly. 

" The Eoman Pontiff, who does not perform the part of a mere 
man, but is the vicegerent of the true God, looses not by any human, 
but rather by divine authority" 

Gregory IX. in 1239, deposed Frederick II. and ab- 
solved his subjects from their oath of allegiance ; and 
Innocent IV. in 1245, repeated it, utterly depriving 
him of crown and kingdom, of command and subject. 
Listen at the successor of St. Peter and the servant of 
Him whose kingdom is not of this world : 

" "We hearing about the foregoing and many other his wicked 
miscarriages, had before a careful deliberation with our brethren 
and the holy Council, seeing that we, although unworthy, do hold 
the place of Jesus Christ on earth, and that it was said unto us in 
the place of St. Peter, the Apostle, ' Whatsoever thou shalt bind on 
earth,' — the said prince (who had rendered himself unworthy of em- 
pire and kingdoms, and all honor and dignity, and who for his 
iniquities is cast away from God) that he should not reign or com- 
mand, being bound by his sins and cast away, and deprived by the 
Lord of all honor and dignity, do show, denounce, and accordingly, by 
sentence, deprive : absolving all who are held bound by oath of allegi- 
ance, from such oath forever ; by apostolic authority firmly pro- 
hibiting that no man henceforth do obey him or regard as emperor 
or king ; and decreeing that whoever hereafter yield advice, or aid, 
or favor him, as emperor or king, shall immediately lie under the 
ban of excommunication." 

This is a part of the decretal law of the Church of 
Eome to-day — infallible law, and an open precedent for 
Pius IX. 

Boniface VIIL, in 1302, issued against Phillippe le 
Bel of France a bull of excommunication and depo- 
sition, from which I take the following extract : 






356 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

" We are taught by the words of the evangelists, that in his 
power there are two swords, the spiritual and temporal. For when 
the apostles said : ' Lo, here are two swords ;' namely, in the Church, 
when the apostles spoke, the Lord did not say, ' It is too much,' but 
' It is enough.' * * * Both swords, therefore, are in the power 
of the Church ; namely, the spiritual and the material sword ; but 
one is to be exercised by the Church — the other for the Church ; 
the one by the hands of the priest, the other by the hands of kings 
and soldiers, but at the nod and sufferance of the priest. But it be- 
hooves that one sword be subject to the other, and that the temporal 
authority be subject to the spiritual power; for when the apostle says, 
' There is no power but of God, and the powers that be are ordained 
of God ;' they would not be ordained, unless the one sword were sub- 
ject to the other. 

" For, truth bearing witness, the spiritual power can appoint the 
earthly power, and judge it, if it be not good ; for this the prophecy 
of Jeremiah truly states of the Church and power of the Church : 
* Behold I have set thee over nations and kingdoms,' &c, with the 
words which follow. Therefore, if the earthly power deviates, it is 
judged by its superior ; but if the supreme power deviates, it can 
be judged by God alone, not by man. Witness the apostle's declara- 
tion : ' He that is spiritual judgeth all things, but he himself is 
judged by no man.' " 

"Moreover, we declare, affirm, define, and pronounce, that it is alto- 
gether a matter of necessity to salvation for every human creature to be 
subject to the Roman Pontiff.'' 1 

If it be " altogether a matter of necessity to salva- 
tion for every human creature to be subject to the 
Eoman Pontiff," then every good papist, always and 
everywhere, is bound by the strongest possible ties, 
spiritually and temporally, to him. That temporal as 
well as spiritual allegiance is here meant, cannot be 
doubted. He may live in a Protestant country, and 
take the oath of allegiance to its constitution or mon- 
archy, but he is a subject of Home. And if the Pope 



TEMPORAL SUPREMACY. 357 

demand his services, or command him not to obey the 
heretical government, or ruler, he must, he can but 
obey ; or the Jupiter who holds the thunder in his 
hands, will throw him at his feet, " either penitent or 
crushed." It is obedience to the assumed Yicar of 
Jesus Christ on earth, or damnation. And the good 
papist, unhesitatingly, undoubtingly believing it — for so 
he has been taught by infallible teachers — will give up 
his liberty, his country, rather than his hope of heaven ; 
rather than hear that anathema, which, if it came from 
the lips of God — and he believes it does — would make 
the stoutest heart quail, and the mightiest hero waver. 
The Eoman Catholic, then, say what you will, is bound 
by stronger fetters than the yoke of Austrian despot- 
ism. We do not fully know, and cannot fully under- 
stand, the fearful might and tyranny of the power that 
lords it over him. He must believe and worship, obey 
and labor, " at the nod and sufferance of the priest" or 
be cast away forever. 

A bull of excommunication and deposition was ful- 
minated against Queen Elizabeth, in 1570, by Pius V. 
The following extract is enough to show that Rome, in 
her falling away and proud exaltation, never retraces 
her steps, or yields a position. England, at that time, 
was a Protestant country, and entirely independent, in 
every sense, of the See of Rome : 

"PIUS, BISHOP, SERVANT OF THE SERVANTS OF GOD. 

" In perpetual memorial of the matter, He that reigneth on high, 
to whom is given all power in heaven and in earth, hath committed 
his one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, out of which there is 
no salvation, to one alone upon earth, namely, to Peter, the chief of 
the Apostles, and to Peter's successor, the Bishop of Rome, to be by 



358 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

him governed by plenary authority. Him alone hath He made prince 
over all people and all kingdoms, to pluck up, to destroy, to scatter, to 
consume, to plant, and to build, that he may preserve his faithful 
people (knit together in one bond of charity) in the unity of the 
spirit, and present them spotless and unblamable to their Saviour. 
In discharge of which function we, who are by God's goodness, called 
to the government of the aforesaid Church, do spare no pains, la- 
boring with all earnestness, that the unity and the Catholic religion 
(which the Author thereof hath, for the trial of his children's faith, 
and for our amendment, suffered to be tossed with so great afflictions) 
might be preserved sincere. But the number of the ungodly hath 
gotten such power, that there is now no place in the whole world 
which they have not essayed to corrupt with their most wicked 
doctrines ; and, among others, Elizabeth, the pretended Queen of 
England, the servant of wickedness, lendeth thereto her helping 
hand. 

" Being, therefore, supported by His authority, whose pleasure it 
was to place us (though unable for so great a burden) in this su- 
preme throne of justice, we do, out of the fulness of our apostolic 
power, pronounce the said Elizabeth to be a heretic, and the favorer 
of heretics, and by her adherence in the matters aforesaid, to have 
incurred the sentence of excommunication, and to be cut off from 
the unity of the body of Christ. And, moreover, we do declare her 
to be deprived of her pretended title to the kingdom aforesaid, and all 
dominion, dignity, and vrivilege whatsoever, and also the nobility, 
subjects, and people of said kingdom, and all others who have in 
any sort sworn allegiance unto her, to be fore ver absolved from any 
such oath, and all manner of du'y, dominion, allegiance, and obedience. 
And we also do, by authority of these presents, absolve them, and 
do deprive the said Elizabeth of her pretended title to the kingdom, 
and all other things before named. And we do command and charge 
all and every, the noblemen, subjects, and people, and others afore- 
said, that they presume not to obey her, or her orders, mandates, or 
laws ; and those who shall do the contrary we do include in the 
same anathema." 

Who can longer doubt, if he doubted before, that 
the Popes have claimed and exercised temporal author- 



TEMPOEAL SUPREMACY. 359 

ity oyer all people, kings and subjects? And who can 
doubt, who knows anything of Komanism, that if a 
majority of the nobility and people of England had 
been papists, Elizabeth would have been hurled from 
her throne and crushed, and a Eoman Catholic — 
true and faithful — placed upon it, to rule over Eng- 
land and destroy Protestantism, and blot out the last 
hope of the world ? Thanks to Elizabeth with her firm 
sceptre, and to our forefathers with their bold, heroic 
hearts, who bid defiance to the thunders of the Vati- 
can, and have bequeathed us the glorious inheritance 
of a pure Christianity and civil and religious liberty ! 

Paschal II., in 1099, excommunicated and deposed 
Henry IV. ; Gregory IX., in 1239, excommunicated 
Frederick II., and absolved his subjects from their oath 
of fealty; and Paul III., in 1536 and 1538, deposed 
Henry VIII. of England, and absolved his subjects 
from all oaths of allegiance, after he and they had sev- 
ered all connection whatever with the See of Rome. 
Paul had no more right in or authority over the king- 
dom of England, than Pius IX. has in and over these 
United States. 

Pius IX., on the 22d of January, 1854, delivered an 
allocution against the laws of the kingdom of Sardinia, 
declaring them to be "null and void." It was the 
claim and exercise of temporal power. Before I lay a 
part of this document before the reader, it may be well 
" to offer a word of explanation of the causes that gave 
rise to it." 

"The government of Piedmont has recently deter- 
mined, at the earnest request of many of its subjects, 
and in view of the imperative demands of civilization, 



360 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

as well as of the best interests of the Soman Catholic 
Church itself, to introduce a better system than has 
hitherto prevailed in the distribution of the revenues 
of its clergy. There are, in the country, over six 
hundred houses of the different monastic orders, with 
nearly nine thousand monks and nuns, whose annual 
revenue is said to be about $400,000. The govern- 
ment proposes to suppress the convents, except those 
employed as schools and hospitals ; allowing pensions 
to such of the monks and nuns as shall return to civil 
society. The other Church property of the country 
amounts to about eighty millions, yielding a revenue 
of, perhaps, four millions a year. It is very unequally 
distributed ; the higher dignitaries receiving so large a 
share, that the government has had to allow between 
one and two hundred thousand dollars a year, from the 
public treasury, for the support of the humbler clergy. 
It is now proposed to distribute these Church reve- 
nues, on some equitable plan, among the clergy of all 
classes, as the annual returns are believed to be ample, 
if properly divided, for the wants of all. These meas- 
ures, which in themselves appear so simple and so 
just, are bitterly opposed by the bishops and higher 
clergy generally."* 

The following extract gives the gist of the matter : 

" Matters haying now come to such a pass," says the Pope, " it is 
not enough to deplore the wrongs done to the Church, but it is our 
duty to use every effort to remedy this evil, according to the duty of 
our charge, and therefore we again raise our voice, with apostolic free- 
dom, in this solemn assembly, and we reject and condemn not only all 
and each of the decrees of that government, hurtful to the rights and 

* Dr. McClintock's "Temporal Power of the Pope." 



TEMPORAL SUPREMACY. 361 

authority of religion, of the Church, and of the holy see, but likewise the 
law lately proposed. We declake all these acts to be absolutely 
null and void. Moreover, we seriously warn all those in whose 
name, by whose order or exertions these decrees have been pub- 
lished, as well as all who may sanction, approve, or favor in any 
way whatsoever, the law lately proposed, to consider in their hearts 
the penalties and censures contained in the apostolic constitution, 
the canons of holy Councils, and especially in the canons of the holy 
Council of Trent, against spoliators and profaners of holy things, 
against the violators of the liberty of the Church and the holy see, 
and the usurpers of their rights. " 

The evidence, then, is clear that the Pope has 
claimed and exercised authority over temporals, over 
sovereigns and people ; that the present Pope claims 
and exercises this power ; that this power is claimed to 
be of divine right, and cannot, therefore, be disputed 
or resisted, and that it can " never lapse." None but 
the ignorant or interested will deny these facts. 

That it has been denied by able theologians and 
learned Universities, and by the whole Gallican party 
in Prance and the United States — a very meagre mi- 
nority, I am sorry to say, of the Church of Eome — that 
the Pope possesses or is clothed with, by divine right, or 
any other right, temporal supremacy, is well known. 
All Protestants join them, and deny that he is invested 
with any such prerogative. But this denial does not 
reach and affect the question before us. It is one thing to 
possess, to be clothed, by the great God, with authority, 
and another thing to claim and exercise it. The claim 
may be utterly groundless, and the exercise a usurpa- 
tion. This, we contend, is the case with the Eoman 
Pontiffs. This is the logical sequence of the Gallican's 
position. Whether the Pope really possesses this awful 
16 



362 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

power, jure divino, is a question which, beyond a sim- 
ple denial now, I leave for the feeble Grallicans — feeble 
in numbers — and the dominant Jesuits to settle. The 
question before us, have the Popes claimed and exer- 
cised temporal supremacy — claimed and exercised it 
as of divine right ? is proved beyond all doubt. No 
intelligent, honest man, I repeat, will deny it. 

" Dr. Kenrick, Archbishop of Baltimore, asserts positively, that 
the temporal power of which we speak, was never claimed by the 
Church, and ho challenges the production of a single decree or defin- 
ition in which this power was propounded as an article of faith. 
' Such,' says the learned bishop, ' does not exist.'"* 

Here is a direct issue. Let the intelligent reader, 
with the papal decrees, just given, before his eyes, with 
the words of Pius IX., declaring the laws of Sardinia, 
passed by her supreme legislative authority, " to be ab- 
solutely null and void," still ringing in the ears of that 
government, decide the question. But his " Grace," or 
Mr. Chandler for him, leaves a loophole through which, 
to escape. Temporal supremacy, or the claim to it, was 
never decreed an " article of faith." This we all know ; 
this never was asserted. Infallibility never has been 
decreed an "article of faith." It is, nevertheless, a 
settled dogma of the Ohurch of Eome, and implicitly 
believed in by every true Eomanist. Spiritual suprem- 
acy has never been decreed "an article of faith," not- 
withstanding it is a fundamental tenet with that Church. 
"The learned Bishop" might deny, and doubtless 
would, if it would serve an end, that "a single decree 
or definition " has ever been passed or bodied forth, to 
constitute this assumed spiritual authority an article of 

* Chandler's Speech in the House of Representatives. 



TEMPORAL SUPREMACY. 363 

faith. Bat no papist denies, though, it is not an arti- 
cle of faith, that the Pope claims and exercises spirit- 
ual supremacy. What evasions these infallible men 
will resort to, when a frank avowal might damage 
their cause ! I will pit against his grace, presently, 
Eoman Catholic writers as " learned" and intelligent 
as he, who will set the bishop and his readers right, if 
they will honestly examine them. 
The late Bishop England says : 

" God never gave to St. Peter any temporal power, any authority 
to depose kings, any authority to interfere with political concerns. 
And any right which his successors might claim, for any of those 
purposes, must be derived from some other source." 

This has been quoted to prove that the Pope does 
not claim temporal authority over monarchs. It proves 
anything else. The bishop denies that he has authority 
derived from God over kings, or over any political ques- 
tion whatever. But he does not deny, if sincere, he could 
not deny, that the Pope claims to have, and that he exer 
cises it. He indirectly admits it. He knew, and the 
world knows, that he claims it. The bishop denies, 
and we deny, that he has ever been clothed with such 
power. 

The following propositions by Mr. Pitt, the younger, 
of England, were submitted to the principal Eoman 
Catholic Universities of France and Spain : 

"1. Has the Pope, or cardinals, or anybody of men, or any in- 
dividual of the Church of Eome, any civil authority, power, juris- 
diction, or preeminence whatsoever, within the realm of England? 

" 2. Can the Pope, or cardinals, or any body of men, or any indi- 
vidual of the Church of Eome, absolve or dispense his Majesty's sub- 
jects from their oath of allegiance upon any pretext whatever?'' 



364 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

These questions do not meet the case. They have 
reference to the possession, and not to the claim of power. 
The Pope certainly has no political power in England, 
or right to absolve her Majesty's subjects from their 
oath of allegiance, but he claims such power. Clement 
VII., Paul III., that " prince of glorious memory," as 
Pallivicini calls him, and Pius V., did. Their views 
have never been rejected by their successors or the 
Church — how could this be, as they were infallible ? — 
and their decrees have never been abrogated. Pius 
IX. has no " civil authority, power, jurisdiction, or pre- 
eminence whatsoever in the realm of n Sardinia, but he 
claims it. To deny that he does, that he claims supreme 
temporal authority over all temporals, and that this has 
been a dogma of the pontiffs ever since the assumption 
of the claim by Gregory VIL, and that it is the doc- 
trine of the Eoman Catholic Church, is to ignore the 
facts of history and stultify one's self. The Gallicans 
deny, I may repeat once again, that the Pope has ever 
been clothed with such power ; and hence, the Uni- 
versities addressed, being Gallican, answered in the 
negative. They denied the authority, but not its 
claim. 

Louis XIV., in 1682, summoned the bishops of France 
to an assembly, or Synod, at Paris. The object was to 
interpose limits to papal abuses and usurpations, and 
define the doctrine of the Gallican Church on this ques- 
tion of temporal supremacy and councils-general. The 
four following propositions were passed, and received 
the hearty support of Bossuet, and of bishops, archbish- 
ops, and the laity, and the sanction of Louis : 

" 1. That the Popes have no power from God to interpose, direct- 



TEMPORAL SUPREMACY. 365 

ly or indirectly, in the temporal concerns of princes or of sovereign 
States. 2. That the authority of General Councils is superior to 
that of the Pope. 3. That the usages of the French Church are 
inviolable. 4. That the Pope is not infallible in points of faith un- 
less his decisions are attended with the consent of the Church."* 

All these propositions were rejected at Eome, and 
are now held as rejected. The one especially denying 
that the Pope has any " power to interpose in the tem- 
poral concerns of princes " was by Innocent XI. de- 
clared to be "null" and " void" The following extract 
taken from " the notes to Bergier's 'Dictionnaire de The- 
ologief which has long been a standard work in Boman 
Catholic seminaries, "f gives us a brief and authentic 
history of the fate of of these propositions : 

" On the passage of the * Declaration/ it was presented to Louis 
XT V., who in fact had instigated it. The King, to incorporate it 
with the State law, issued a decree declaring that all who desired to 
obtain degrees in theology should maintain, as the law of the land 
the opinions enunciated in the four articles. Pope Innocent XI. 
did not hesitate to manifest his disapprobation : he annulled and 
condemned the act of the assembly of 1682, in his brief of April 11th, 
in the same year. ' By these presents, in virtue of the authority 
given to us by the omnipotent God, we condemn, rescind, and annul 
the acts of your assembly in the business of the regale, with all that 
followed them.' 

" Nor was Alexander Till, behind Innocent XI. On the fourth 
of August, 1690, he published the constitution Inter midtiplices, in 
which he condemned, made void, and annulled all that had been 
done in the assembly of the clergy of France, in the year 1682, as 
well with regard to the extension of the regale as also to the decla- 
ration, and the four articles contained in it : 'All and singular of 
the acts, as well with regard to the extension of the jus regalie, as 

* Dr. McClintock's " Temporal Power." 

1 1 quote from Dr. McClintock's work, not having the original work 
before me. 



366 THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

to the declaration containing the power of the Church, and the four 
articles contained therein, we do condemn, destroy, annul, and 
make void. 1 

" Not less important to our understanding of the spirit and doc- 
trine of the holy see, is the fact that the Popes refused for more 
than ten years to grant bulls to such of the prelates (nominated to 
bishoprics) as had attended the assembly, and had signed the dec- 
laration. It was not till the time of Innocent XII., in 1693, that 
the difference was accommodated, by means of two letters written 
to the Pope, one by the nominated bishops, and the other by Louis 
XIY. In the letter of the prelates mark the following expression : 
1 We profess and declare that we grieve vehemently, and beyond the 
power of words to express, over the acts of the said assembly which 
have so greatly displeased your Holiness and your predecessors ; and 
we declare, moreover, that whatever was decreed by that assembly 
concerning the ecclesiastical and pontifical authority, we hold to be 
not decreed, and declare that it is so to be held.'* 

" In 1794 Pope Pius VI., in his bull Auctorem Fidei, which 
has been received, without protest, by all the Churches, renewed 
these declarations of his predecessors Innocent XI. and Alexander 
VIII. Moreover, he condemned as rash, scandalous, and supreme- 
ly injurious to the holy see, the act of the Synod of Pistoia (in its 
decree de la foi) adopting the ' Declaration.' The terms of this 
1 Constitution ' are as follows : Wherefore, as the acts of the Gal- 
lican assembly were condemned and annulled soon after their ap- 
pearance, by our predecessor Innocent XI., in his brief of April 
11th, 1682, and afterward more pointedly by Alexander VIII., in 
his constitution Inter Multiplies, August 4th, 1690, much more 
strongly does our pastoral solicitude require of us to reprove and 
condemn the recent adoption of those acts by the Synod (of Pistoia) 
as rash, scandalous, especially injurious in the highest degree to 
this apostolic see, after the decrees published by our predecessors, 
and by this present constitution we do reprove and condemn them, 
and decree that they are to be held as reproved and condemned." 

Bellarmine thus states the Ultramontane and Galli- 
ean theories : 

* The Pope holds in his hand the power, and can compel obedience. 



TEMPORAL SUPREMACY. 367 

" The first is, that the chief pontiff, by divine right, hath the full- 
est power over the whole world, as well in ecclesiastical as in polit- 
ical affairs. 

" The other opinion, placed on the other extreme, teaches that 
the pontiff, as pontiff, and by divine right hath no temporal power, 
nor can he in any manner govern secular princes, nor deprive them 
of their kingdom and authority, although they otherwise deserve to 
be deprived, — all the heretics of our times teach so." 

He states and advocates a third and middle theory: 

" That the pontiff, as pontiff, has not directly and immediately any 
temporal power, but only spiritual power ; he hath especially indi 
rectly a certain power, and that supreme in temporal matters."* 

This is pure Ultramontanism stated in milder 
terms. If the Pope " has not directly and immediately 
temporal power," that is, if he is not the Emperor of 
Austria, the Queen of Spain, or the President of the 
United States — and who ever affirmed that he is ? — 
yet, as he is supreme in spiritual matters, he is of ne- 
cessity "supreme in temporal;" for the spiritual is 
above the temporal order. If not the Queen of Spain, 
therefore, or President of the United States, he is their 
master, jure divino, as spiritual prince and ruler of the 
world. 

Bellarmine sustains his position with a clearness and 
force of argument that Gallicanism has never been able 
to refute, and which demonstrates beyond all doubt, 
that temporal supremacy is a dogma of the Church of 
Rome :f 

" This doctrine may be proved in a twofold way, namely, by rea- 
son and examples. 
" The first reason : The civil power is subject to the spiritual 

* Translation by Elliott. 

I Dr. Elliott's Translation. I give an abstract, but in his words. 



368 THE GEE AT APOSTASY. 

power, when each is a part of the same Christian Republic ; for the 
spiritual prince can govern temporal princes, and dispose of tempo- 
ral affairs, for the purpose of a spiritual good, because every superior 
can govern his own inferiors. 

" For the political power, as such, not only as it is Christian, but 
also as political, is subject to the ecclesiastical power. This is de- 
monstrated : ' 1. From the ends of each ; for a temporal or civil end 
is subordinate to a spiritual end.' ' 2. Kings and pontiffs, clergymen 
and laymen, do not make two republics, but one, that is, one 
Church.' ' 3. If a temporal administration impedes a spiritual 
good, in the judgment of all, the temporal prince is bound to change 
that mode of administration, although it may be with the loss of a 
temporal good.' " 

" The second reason. The ecclesiastical state ought to be perfect 
and sufficient in itself, in order to obtain its own end." " The power 
of using and disposing of temporal or civil things is necessary to the 
spiritual end, because, otherwise, bad princes could, with impunity, 
cherish heretics, and overturn religion. Therefore, the spiritual 
power hath this authority. 

" Furthermore, any State, because it ought to be perfect and suf- 
ficient of itself, ought to govern another State not subject to it, and 
force it to change its administration, nay, even to depose its prince, 
and institute another, when it cannot otherwise defend itself from 
the injuries of the other.* Therefore, much more can the spiritual 
kingdom govern the temporal State subject to it, and force it to change 
its administration and depose princes, when it cannot otherwise ac- 
complish its own spiritual good." 

" The third reason. It is not lawful for Christians to tolerate an 
infidel king or a heretic, if he would endeavor to draw away his sub- 
jects to his heresy, or to infidelity ; but to judge whether the king 
does or does not draw them away to heresy, belongs to the Pope, to 
whom is committed the care of religion ; therefore, it belongs to the 
Pope to judge whether the king is to be deposed, or not to be deposed." 

"Christians are not required, nay, they ought not, to tolerate an 
infidel king, at the evident danger of religion ; for when divine 

* The rule would certainly work both ways, and the weaker always 
certainly be destroyed. Was Bellarmine a fillibuster ? 



TEMPORAL SUPREMACY. 369 

right and human right are opposed, divine right ought to be pre- 
served at the expense of human right." 

"Fourth reason. When kings and princes come to the Church 
that they might become Christians, they are received with express 
condition, either expressed or understood, that their sceptres should 
be subject to Christ." 

"Fifth reason. When it is said to Peter : ' Feed my sheep,' every 
power is given to him which is necessary to tend the flock. But a 
threefold power is necessary for the pastor, namely, one respecting 
the wolves, that he might drive them away in any manner he can ; 
another is, respecting the rams, that if any of them should hurt the 
flock with their horns, he could shut them in and prevent them, that 
they should not thereafter lead astray the flock ; the third is about 
the other sheep, that he would furnish to each of them suitable food. 
Therefore, this triple power hath the supreme 'Pontiff''' ! 

The examples lie gives are those I have already laid 
before the reader. They cannot be denied, nor ex- 
plained away. And Bellarmine cites them, and very 
properly too, to prove that the Pope is {claims to be) 
u supreme in temporal matters" 

" Suarez, in his treatise Be Primatu (lib iii. cap. 21)] asks the 
pregnant question : 

" 'Can the Pontiff, in virtue of his spiritual authority, not merely 
advise and direct Christian princes, but also coerce them by pun- 
ishments, even to the extent of stripping them of royal power, if 
need be V 

" This question is answered affirmatively."* 

Baronius says : 

. " All those who take from the Church of Rome, from the See of 
St. Peter, one of the swords, and allow only the spiritual, are branded 
for heretics "\ 

Mr. Brownson, in his " Keview" for January, 1854, 
thus emphatically opposes Grallicanisrn, as recently set 

* McClintock's " Temporal Power." t Quoted by McClintock. 

16* 



370 THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

forth and defended by M. Grosselin, and proclaims 
Ultramontanism to be the true doctrine, and that held 
by the Church of Bo me : 

" We do not like M. Gosselin's theory ; we do not believe 
it, and could not believe it, without violence to our whole un- 
derstanding of the Catholic system of truth. The author, in 
principle, is a thorough-going Gallican ; and, if he defends the 
illustrious Pontiffs who have been so maligned by non-Catholics 
and courtiers, he does it on principles which seem to us to 
humiliate them, and to degrade them to the rank of mere secular 
princes. His theory, at first view, may have a plausible appear- 
ance, but it is illusory, like all theories invented to recommend the 
Church to her enemies, or to escape the odium always attached to 
truth by the world. In saying this, we are not ignorant that many 
whom we love and respect embrace that theory in part, and explain 
and defend by it the temporal power exercised by Popes and Coun- 
cils over sovereigns in the Middle Ages. They do not, indeed, agree 
with M. Grosselin in his denial that the Popes held that power by 
divine right, but they think it suffices to explain and defend it on 
the ground of human right. They agree with us as to the suprema- 
cy of the spiritual order and the temporal jurisdiction of the Popes ; 
but they think that all the objections of non- Catholics can be ade- 
quately and honestly answered without taking such high ground ; 
and the ground of human right being sufficient, and less offensive, it 
should in prudence be adopted, and the other doctrine be passed 
under the disciplina arcani.* They, therefore, disapprove of the 
course we take, and wish we would content ourselves with more 
moderate views, not because we are uncatholic, but because we are 
imprudent, and subject Catholics to unnecessary odium. 

" We found a very general disposition, among the Catholic laity, 
to separate religion from politics, to emancipate politics from tlie 
Christian law, to vote God out of the State, and to set up the people 
against the Almighty. Was this, in these revolutionary times, to be 
passed over in silence, and no effort made to arrest the tide of political 
atheism ? We saw our Holy Father driven into exile ; we saw large 

* The reader should weigh well this sentence. It lifts a veil that 
gives us a glimpse of Jesuitism. 



TEMPORAL SUPREMACY. 371 

numbers of nominal Catholics rejoicing at the impious usurpations 
of Mazzini & Co., sympathizing with the infamous assassins and 
parricides, who, in the name of Liberty and Democracy, were seek- 
ing to overthrow the papacy, and destroy the world's last hope (!). 
What was, then, our plain duty ? Was it not to assert the suprema- 
cy of God, the jurisdiction of the spiritual power, to expose the fatal 
error of Gallicanism, and, as far as we could, exhibit the real posi- 
tion of the papacy in the Catholic system ? So we have felt, and 
so we have done. * * * If we had not found Catholics bring- 
ing out an erroneous doctrine on religious liberty, and endeavoring 
to prove that Catholicity approves of religious liberty, in the 
sense it is asserted by non-Catholics, we should not have taken up the 
subject. * * * As the denial of the spiritual authority soon 
leads to a denial of the temporal, so the denial of the temporal soon 
leads to the denial of the spiritual. When we found democracy, even 
by nominal Catholics, embraced in that sense in which it denies all 
law [Roman Catholic] , and asserts the right of the people, or, rather, 
of the mob, to do whatever they please, and making it criminal in 
us to dispute their infallibility, we felt that we must bring out the 
truth against them, and if scandal resulted we were not its cause. 
The responsibility rests on those whose obsequiousness to the multi- 
tude made our opposition necessary." 

Now, can any unprejudiced man read this article 
without being deeply convinced that Eomanism is the 
implacable, eternal enemy of democracy, of civil and re- 
ligious liberty? 

Listen again at this honored son of Eome and expo- 
nent of Koman Catholicism in this country : 

"In proportion as w r e wish to serve religion and society, we 
must raise our voice against Gallicanism, turn to the Holy Father, 
and, instead of weakening his hands and saddening his heart, by 
our denial of his plenary authority, re-assert his temporal as well 
as spiritual prerogatives. We have no hope but in God, and God 
helps us only through Peter,* and Peter helps us only through his 
successors, in whom he still lives and exercises his apostolate." 

* Where is the Virgin ? 



372 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

In the following extract he shows, in complete refu- 
tation of some who have so affirmed, that the Pope 
never deposed kings by their consent, or by the con- 
sent of any one : 

"All history fails to show an instance in which the Pope, in de- 
posing a temporal sovereign, professes to do it by the authority 
vested in him by the pious belief of the faithful, generally received 
maxims, the opinion of the age, the concessions of sovereigns, or the 
civil constitution and public laws of Catholic States. On the con- 
trary, he always claims to do it by the authority committed to him 
as the successor of the prince of the Apostles, by the authority of 
his apostolic ministry, by the authority committed to him of bind- 
ing and loosing, by the authority of Almighty God, of Jesus Christ, 
King of kings and Lord of lords, whose minister, though unworthy, 
he asserts that he is — or some such formula, which solemnly and 
expressly sets forth that his authority is held by divine right, by 
virtue of his ministry, and exercised solely in his character of vicar 
of Jesus Christ on earth. To this, we believe, there is not a single 
exception. Wherever the Popes cite their titles, they never, so far 
as we can find, cite a human title, but always a divine title. ' 
Whence is this ? Did the Popes cite a false title ? Were they 
ignorant of their own title?" * * * * * * * 

"There are documents enough in which the Pope not only 
excommunicates, but solemnly deposes a prince ; and in these very 
documents we find that the title set forth, and the only title set 
forth, is that derived from his apostolic ministry. Never does 
the Pope profess to depose, any more than to excommunicate, by 
virtue of any other than a divine title. Whatever he does in the 
case, he always professes to do by his supreme jurisdiction as the 
vicar of Jesus Christ, and successor of Peter, the prince of the 
Apostles. That the Popes wilfully erred, M. Gosselin cannot pre- 
tend." 

" One of two things, it seems to us, must be admitted, if we 
have regard to the undeniable facts in the case ; namely, either the 
Popes usurped the authority they exercised over sovereigns in the 
middle ages, or they possessed it by virtue of their title as vicars 



TEMPORAL SUPREMACY. 373 

of Jesus Christ on earth. We do not, therefore, regard M. Gosse- 
lin's theory as tenable ; and we connt his attempted defence of the 
Pope, on the ground of human right, a failure." 

"The Tablet," published in Dublin, boldly and em- 
phatically teaches the temporal supremacy of the Pope. 
In a criticism of Mr. Chandler's speech, it affirms that 
his positions are untenable, his conclusions false, and 
his language disrespectful to "his Holiness." "The 
Civilta Cattolica" at Eome, was established for the very 
purpose of maintaining this theory, and does maintain 
it most effectually ; the Historische Politische Blatter, 
the most eminent papal journal in Germany, is strongly 
Ultramontane ; the Univers, of Paris, is more Ultra- 
montane than Bellarmine ; the Belgian papers, I think, 
without exception, are on that side.* 

" Our doctrines," says Brownson, in his "Eeview" for 
April, 1854, "is stated and taken by Padra Cercia, in 
his Tractatus de Romano Pontifice, published at Naples 
in 1851, as unquestioned and unquestionable, and ad- 
duced as an unanswerable reason why the Pope should 
not be subject to any temporal power, but should have 
an independent principality, and the status of an inde- 
pendent and sovereign prince. Moreover, the Abbe 
Eohrbacher, a doctor of theology and a most learned 
French theologian, defends it throughout his l Universal 
History of the Catholic Church,' the second edition of 
which has just been completed, under the eye, and 
with the express encouragement of Eome." 

Finally, Pius IX. has not only claimed and exer- 
cised temporal authority over the laws, and therefore 
over the king and parliament of an independent king- 

* Dr, McClintock. 



874 THE GEE AT APOSTASY. 

dom, but lie has condemned Professor Nuytz 7 recent 
work on Canon Law, because it maintained the Galil- 
ean theory, and also for the same reason, "Bailly's 
Theology," which was used for some time in the ecclesi- 
astical seminaries of France. Gallicanism, then, has 
ever been in bad odor at Eome ; it has been repeatedly 
condemned and rejected, and there it is now dead and 
its memory loathed. Ultramontanism is dominant. 

It is clear, then, that the temporal supremacy of the 
Pope is a doctrine of the Eoman Catholic Church. It 
is not an article of faith, decreed by Pope or Council, I 
state again ; nor is spiritual supremacy and infallibility, 
which are not denied to be, nay, are proclaimed, and 
known to be, fundamental doctrines in her creed. The 
proof, as the preceding facts and arguments show, is 
as clear and irrefragable that the former is a doctrine 
of her creed, as that the latter are. Interested persons 
may deny it, but no intelligent, honest man, will 
doubt it. 

Has this doctrine any foundation in Scripture ? Has 
the Pope been clothed with authority oyer all people 
and rulers, by the " King of kings and Lord of lords " ? 
Where is the proof? Where is the imperishable record 
of the grant of such power? A doctrine so momentous 
ought, would have been written by Him who has re- 
vealed all things necessary for our government and sal- 
vation, with the clearness of a sunbeam. 

Is it found in the passage, " I will give unto thee the 
keys of the kingdom of heaven " ? The kingdom of 
heaven in this place is the Gospel, which Peter was to 
preach, and which all the disciples received and 
preached. "The keys of the kingdom of heaven" — that 



TEMPORAL SUPREMACY. 375 

means the keys of the kingdoms of this world! "My 
kingdom is not of this world, 11 said the Lord of glory. 
"Be subject to the powers that be/' infallible Paul 
taught the Church ; temporal powers he meant, beyond 
all question. 

Is it found in the passage, "Feed my sheep"? 
Then, all the Apostles were clothed with temporal au- 
thority, and every true minister is, 

" Monarch of all lie surveys." 

Bellarmine's affirmation and exposition are ground- 
less and silly: "A triple poiver hath the supreme 
pontiff," conferred upon him by this language ! ! 

Is it taught in the reply of the Saviour, when his 
disciples said: " Behold, here are two swords;" and he 
said unto them : " It is enough " ? Do those two swords 
symbolize spiritual and temporal supremacy? And 
did the Lord teach this doctrine in this expression ? 
No, verily. And by the same rule of interpretation by 
which you torture such a meaning out of it, you may 
make a thousand passages of Holy Writ prove just 
what you please. "The ten camels on which Eebecca 
rode when she went to Isaac," an illiterate expounder 
once taught, "represent the ten commandments; the 
servants who went after her, Gospel ministers ; Eebecca, 
the penitent, returning sinner ; Isaac, the Son of God, 
and Abraham, the Father, the Lord Almighty 1 '' ! ! Now, 
does this mighty fabric, this unlimited power, at the 
bare mention of which nations have trembled, and at 
the simple exercise of which monarchs have been 
hurled from their thrones, and the sceptres of a hundred 
illustrious predecessors have crumbled in their grasp, 



376 THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

rest upon such a foundation ? Where, then, we again 
demand, is the evidence that it is of divine right ; that 
the Lord of lords, and King of kings, has ever con- 
ferred it upon the Popes of Borne ? There is not a 
particle of such proof. It is a baseless assumption, and 
a most wicked usurpation of power. And in this doc- 
trine the Church of Eome has added the last link of 
evidence that she is the Man of Sin, " who sitteth in 
the Temple of God, as God and above God." 

In the assumption and exercise of spiritual and 
temporal power, the prophecy of the two-horned beast 
is fulfilled. 

We have thus examined some of the doctrines, and 
the practice and assumptions of the Church of Eome, 
in each and all of which the evidence is clear and irre- 
sistible that she has departed from the faith and is the 
great apostasy predicted by Paul and St. John. She, 
and she alone, meets and fulfils, in every particular, 
the prophetic announcement and description of the 
great falling away. And yet, with the prophecy before 
our eyes, and every mark of the Man of Sin, of the 
Beast, of the corrupt Woman drunken with the blood 
of the saints, upon the forehead and huge form of this 
fallen Church, she proclaims that she has not and 
cannot err, that she is the true Church of God, the pure 
spouse of Jesus Christ, and that out of her pale there is 
no salvation ! What blind presumption ! What strange 
infatuation ! That the Church, the Church of God, who 
rejects His Word as a rule of faith and exalts the doings 
and sayings of fallible men to be superior to it, makes 
vain tradition a guide to heaven ! That the Church 
of God, who proclaims that she is infallible amid a 



TEMPORAL SUPREMACY, 377 

thousand errors and profound corruptions — infallible, 
and yet cannot divine where this heavenly attribute 
resides ! That the Church of God, who compels her 
members to confess their sins to men, who, though 
wicked as themselves, can — she affirms — and do remit 
them ! — thus rejecting the doctrine of the Gospel of the 
grace of God of justification by faith, the only way of 
pardon and salvation. That the Church of God, who 
holds that a certain temporal punishment due to sin, 
though the sin has been pardoned, remains to be atoned 
for by suffering or removed by indulgences, the power 
to grant which Christ left with her ! That the Church of 
God, who holds that a priest, a mere man, good or bad, 
can, by a hastily -mumbled prayer any time, create the 
uncreated God out of bread ; that that God is whole 
and entire in each place, though in ten thousand pieces 
on ten thousand altars, and in heaven, at the same time ; 
that He is broken by the hands of the priests and ground 
by the teeth of the faithful, and inwardly digested, and 
yet is none the less to be adored, though thus eaten ! 
That the Church of God, who has exalted the simple 
anointing with oil into the dignity of a sacrament, which 
sacrament remits sins and confers grace upon the dying, 
though the priest had remitted all his sins and indul- 
gences — had removed all the temporal punishment due 
to them, and though he had been made a partaker of the 
divine nature, having eaten the flesh and drunk the blood 
of the Son of God ! That the Church of God, who has 
created a middle state and place of the dead, a place of 
purgation, of atonement by fire, by which sins, that the 
merit of Jesus' blood could not blot out, nor the priest 
remit, nor indulgences, nor transubstantiation, nor 



378 THE GEEAT APOSTASY. 

anointing with oil, with the form of the cross seven 
times, cancel, before entering that place, may be entirely 
burnt out, or in some way cancelled ! That the Church 
of God, who adores bread and wine with the highest 
adoration due to the true God, who bows down before 
the pictures and relics of saints, and venerates them, in 
violation of the express command of Grod, which, for con- 
science' sake, she has cut out of the law ; who invocates 
saints and angels and worships the Yirgin Mary, and 
sings her praises as the Queen of Heaven ; who anathe- 
matizes the Bible and Bible Societies, and all Protestants 
and every good thing ; who persecutes to death and wears 
out the saints of the Most High ; who has drunk the 
blood of millions of the servants of Jesus, and now "whets 
her fangs and plumes her wings for a more sublime flight 
of ruin;" who is corrupt in doctrines and manners, 
corrupt in every department and throughout — deeply, 
foully corrupt ! That the Church of God, who assumes 
universal sovereignty over the souls and bodies of men, 
who dwarfs and blights and damns the one, and manacles 
and enslaves the other ! That the Church of Gocl, the 
pure spouse of Christ, who holds these unscriptural, 
damning doctrines, who is guilty of these cruel, impure 
practices, and who wickedly lords it over souls pur- 
chased with the precious blood of Jesus! No! no! 
She is the Man of Sin seen and described by Paul ; the 
corrupt harlot seen by John — " Babylon the Great, the 
mother of harlots and abominations of the earth." She 
is not the Church of Christ, but Antichrist. 

" But we are sometimes asked by the advocates of Popery : If you 
deny us to be the true Church, where will you find it ? And with 
a mocking sneer of anticipated triumph, they ask : Where was your 



TEMPORAL SUPREMACY. 379 

Church before the time of Luther ? This is a question which would 
suffuse with shame and conscious guilt any cheek but the shameless 
cheek of Eome. Where was our Church before the Reformation ? 
" This is a question that Rome, at least, should never ask, without 
trembling, if she believes that there is a God who sits in heaven. 
Where ? It is like the grinning mockery of Cain, asking where is 
Abel ; a daring mockery too ghastly and hideous even for Cain. 
Where are the victims of her cruelty, that pined and perished in 
the darkness and filth of her countless dungeons ? Where are the 
bones of the murdered Waldenses, who were butchered with the 
sword, and dashed, the mother with her babe, down the rocks, and 
left to be a prey for the vultures ? Where are the Cathari of 
Flanders, Savoy and Milan, who were hunted as beasts to the death ? 
Where are the slaughtered Alsatians, of whom one hundred, in a 
single day, were burned, because they ate meat on Friday ? Where 
are the poor Lollards of England, who were hung, quartered and 
burnt, for reading the Bible ? Where are the ashes of WicklifFe, 
and Huss, and Jerome of Prague, and Savonarola, and the victims 
that smoked in the market places of England, and on the plains of 
Bohemia, before the Reformation? When Rome shall have an- 
swered such queries as these, and disgorged the blood that she drank 
for ten centuries of persecution before the Reformation, and brought 
forth to the light the bones and ashes that lie mouldering in her dun- 
geons, and charnel-houses, and Golgothas, then we shall be better 
able to answer the question : Where was your Church before the 
Reformation ? Until then, we say, wherever the hatred of Rome 
was deadliest, wherever the sword of Rome was reddest, wherever 
the blood-hounds of Rome were fiercest and fastest in scenting and 
throttling the hapless heretic, and her auto-da-fes thickest, and richest 
with the blood of martyrs, there were probably traces at least of 
our Church before the Reformation. But, blessed be God, there 
was never a time when God was without a witness, and Christ with- 
out a people on earth. There were always the seven thousand that 
bowed not the knee to Baal. They were found in the wilds of the 
mountains, in the solitudes of the forests, in the obscure streets of 
the cities, in the hovels of poverty, in the chambers of sickness, and 
even in the cells of convents and the halls of palaces. There was 
never a time when there were not hearts that loved Christ, and lips 
that praised Him, and knees that worshipped Him, and hands that 



380 THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

served Hiin. The lips of John had not ceased to breathe their words 
of burning love, until those of Polycarp, Ignatius, and Tertullian 
caught them up, and they had not yet ceased to speak of Him who 
loved them until Origen and Cyprian, Lactantius and Jerome, pro- 
longed the glorious tidings. Nor were their lips closed until Augus- 
tine and Chrysostom took up the high argument, and rang out the 
glorious accents with a voice that ceased not to echo through a 
thousand years of darkness and degeneracy ; when the lips of the 
Gregories and Bedes, Anselms and Gotteschalks, Bernards and 
Bradwardines, Arnolds and Wickliffes, Husses, and countless others, 
proclaimed the same truth, that soon shook the world from the lips 
of Luther, whose trumpet-tongue awaked the slumbering Church of 
Christ and brought her forth terrible as an army with banners. 
Since that period, no tongue dares ask, no tongue needs ask : Where 
is your Church since the Eeformation ? Many, alas ! many, have 
been butchered by the crusading legions of Kome ; have died in 
her dungeons, or perished at her stakes, or fled from her fury to the 
land of strangers, and the islands of the sea ; and the same dark 
rendering that is reckoned up against Eome before the Eeformation 
has been registered since. And now where is your Church of the 
Eeformation ? We answer, wherever there are liberty, and law, 
wherever there are thrift, industry, and prosperity ; wherever there 
are schools and colleges, and printing presses ; wherever there are 
smiling fields and happy homes, and virtuous people ; wherever there 
is all that is strongest, purest, mightiest of modern civilization, and 
modern thought, there you will find the Church of the Eeformation. 
Wherever Christ is worshipped, and not Mary ; wherever beggary 
and vice are uncanonized and unconsecrated ; wherever the Bible is 
opened freely to the gaze of the world ; wherever a pure ritual and 
a pure ministry are the adjuncts of the cause of religion ; and 
wherever the rights of thought and speech, person, property, and 
reputation are revered, there you find the Church of the Eeforma- 
tion. And, on the other hand, wherever you find the superstition, 
the beggary, the rags, and the degradation of Italy, Spain, Portugal, 
Austria, Ireland, Mexico, Central and Southern America, the fairest 
regions of the earth as they came from the hand of God, and the 
foulest as they lie in the hands of man, there you will find the 
Church of Eome, the undying, unchanging, unforgiving foe to an 
open Bible and a free Saviour, the gigantic anti-Christ of the world/ 



CHAPTEE VI. 

EKD OF THE GREAT APOSTASY ; OR, DESTRUCTION OF 
THE MAN OF SIN. 

We have seen, as was predicted, the rise, and pro- 
gress, and wide-spread baleful influence of the Great 
Apostasy. The Man of Sin has been revealed, and sitteth 
in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. 
Prophecy now takes up to the mount of vision, and 
points us to his coming doom ; his complete overthrow 
and utter destruction ; and spreads out before us the 
glorious dawn, and bright, heavenly day of the Mil- 
lennium. 

The end of the Apostasy is as clearly revealed as its 
rise, and power, and antagonism to God. The instru- 
mentalities employed in the mighty contest of truth 
with error ; the means by which the Lamb, in his war 
with "that Wicked," will overcome and destroy him, 
and all the varied forms of evil, are most distinctly 
stated : the Scriptures of truth, the preachings of the 
Gospel, and civil government. 

The Scriptures. 

"And then shall that Wicked be revealed whom the Lord shall 
consume with the spirit of his mouth and the brightness of his 
coming." — 2 Thess. ii. 8. 

The spirit of his mouth is his Word, and the bright- 
ness of his. coming, the light which is inherent in and 
accompanies that Word and the work salvation wrought 
by it. " The entrance of thy words giveth light," saith 

(381) 



382 END OF THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

tlie inspired bard. " Thy Word is a lamp unto my 
feet, and a light unto my path." " The Word of God," 
Paul affirms, "is quick and powerful, and sharper than 
any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing 
asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and mar- 
row, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of 
the heart." " The sword of the Spirit is the Word of 
God." "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, 
and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correc- 
tion, for instruction in righteousness ; that the Man of 
God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good 
works." The Bible, then, is a means, in the hands of 
Him who inspired it, in enlightening the mind and in 
consuming the Man of Sin. 

It is scarcely necessary in this connection, especially 
since it has been demonstrated that the Bible is the 
source and rule of faith, to offer an argument to sustain 
this position ; to prove that the Bible is the only Book 
which can make man wise in the science of salvation ; 
that it can and does do this wherever it is received and 
obeyed ; and that, consequently, oral instruction, as is 
vainly contended by Eome, was never designed, by the 
Author of life, to supplant it, or even to be a means of 
saving souls, only in so far as it is accompanied with, 
drawn from, reflects, and is sustained by it. Oral in- 
struction receives its authority and effectiveness from the 
Bible as the revealed will of God, which has priority of 
existence and is independent of it. The former, therefore, 
must be accompanied with and sustained by the latter, and 
not the latter by the former. The Bible, then, in itself, 
as God's Word — how can it be otherwise ? — is a savor 
of life unto life; and hence was designed for and should 



THE SCRIPTURES. 383 

be given to every man. And wherever it goes, lias 
free course, with or without oral instruction, it will 
make man wise unto salvation. Give it, therefore, uni- 
versal circulation, and ihe Man of Sin will be con- 
sumed, and heathen glory and Mohammedan pride bow 
before it. 

Ecclesiastical history, aside from all other evidence, 
sustains these views, with proof that admits of no doubt 
or cavil. The Apostolic Church gave the Bible to the 
people ; and pure doctrines and a holy practice mark 
that era. The Church of Some, in her fall, and pride, 
and high pretensions, denied it them, and gave them, 
instead, oral instruction and miserable traditions ; and 
a thousand years of superstitious error and moral dark- 
ness and death proclaim the results. And even now, 
the millions of her devotees, who are yet denied it, and 
have oral instruction, believe in and are destroyed by 
the same superstitious errors. No light breaks through 
the gloom which shrouds them, no life-giving word 
thrills and divinely stirs them to repentance and to a 
saving faith in Christ. The Church of the Eeformation 
enfranchised it — brought up the Bible, as of old, from 
its long burial, and scattered it as it were upon the 
wings of the wind, and, where the thunder of the Vati- 
can, the voice of the dragon, did not scathe and crush, 
it consumed that Wicked, and made man wise unto sal- 
vation. And all that we now hold dear, a pure Chris- 
tianity, the peace of the present and the hope of the 
future, and civil and religious liberty, we owe, under 
God, to an open Bible — a Bible published in our own 
tongue and freely circulated, and in security read. 
Give it to the world, and the days of Popery will have 



384 END OF THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

been numbered ; the end of the Apostasy will have 
come. 

Great, then, beyond computation, is the responsibility 
which rests upon the Church — the Protestants of this 
country and of Europe — to preserve the Bible intact, 
and multiply it as the sands of the sea, and send it out 
among all people. This responsibility, I am happy to 
know, is sensibly felt, and is being met in the rapid 
multiplication and distribution of this light of the be- 
nighted and hope of a perishing world. 

The British and Foreign Bible Society, which was 
organized in 1804, has issued and distributed in Europe, 
and Asia, and Africa and the islands of the sea, in a word, 
wherever an effectual door has be6n opened, among all 
people, over thirty millions of copies of the Word of God. 
The American Bible Society, instituted in 1816, has 
issued and distributed, wherever it could send a copy, 
over eleven millions. Other Bible Societies, and publish- 
ing branches, organized since the British and Foreign 
Bible Society, and the most of them since the American, 
numbering in all sixty-eight, have issued and given to 
benighted men, nearly six millions. In fifty-two years, 
then, seventy Bible Societies and publishing branches 
have been instituted, and near fifty millions of copies 
of the Word of God, in nearly one hundred and fifty 
languages, have been published and sent forth to con- 
sume that Wicked, and all false religions, and bring in 
everlasting righteousness. The day of redemption 
draweth nigh. 

When the British and Foreign and American Bible 
Societies were organized, doubt and gloom hung upon 
their future. A few friends with but little means, but 



THE SCRIPTURES. 335 

with praying hearts and earnest faith and determined 
wills, laid their foundations ; God sent them help, and 
behold the results ! 

" When he first the work begun, 
Small and feeble was his day ; 
Now the Word doth swiftly run, 
Now it wins its widening way." 

The means and facilities for multiplying the Scrip- 
tures, and the success which has crowned earnest effort, 
have transcended, perhaps, the hopes of the most 
sanguine. The future is redolent of hope. In the next 
half century, under a gracious Providence, taking the 
success of the past as a basis of calculation, three Imndrea 
and fifty millions of Bibles and Testaments ) at least, will 
be sent out to pour the light of life upon the inquiring 
millions of the four quarters of the globe. Europe, I 
trust and hope, will be flooded with them. Then, will 
not the Man of Sin be consumed with the spirit of His 
mouth, and by the brightness of His coming? Portugal 
and Spain, Tuscany and Naples, Belgium and Austria, 
some of them, in natural scenery and climate, gems on 
the bosom of Italy, gardens in the lap of Europe, may 
reject for a long time the message of God and turn 
away the light of their salvation, but He who is Lord 
of lords and King of kings, will break them in pieces 
like a potter's vessel, and breathe the spirit of His 
mouth upon their vine-clad hills and sunny vales, and 
their enfranchised, redeemed, happy millions, now wor- 
shippers of the beast and of his image, shall come to 
Zion with songs of everlasting joy upon their heads. 
0, Lord of Hosts, hasten that day! O Thou, who 
didst inspire of old the Scriptures, send them hence, 



886 END OF THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

till Bomanist and Greek, Mohammedan and Heathen, 
shall bask in the light of the knowledge of the glory 
of God in the face of Jesus Christ ! 

Preaching. 

Another instrumentality in the destruction of the 
Man of Sin, is the preaching of the Gospel. This is 
most impressively brought to our view in the four- 
teenth chapter, sixth and seventh verses, of the Apoca- 
lypse, under the symbol of an angel flying in the midst 
of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to preach to 
them that dwell on the earth. 

"And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the 
everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and 
to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a 
loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him ; for the hour of his 
judgment is come : and worship him that made heaven, and earth? 
and the sea, and the fountains of waters." 

The prophet had just seen (ch. xiii.) two ferocious 
beasts rise up, the one in political society, the other in 
the Church, but one in religion and one in mind, who 
had made war with the saints and overcome them. 
The beast with two horns, or Popery, had changed the 
pure Gospel into lying wonders, the cross into an idola- 
trous crucifix, the fear of God he had turned to himself; 
His worship perverted to a worship of the beast and 
his image, and His glory he had obscured by ages of 
moral darkness which hung as the pall of death upon 
the myriad hosts who followed and worshipped him. 
The prophet's attention is now suddenly arrested by the 
flight of an angel in the midst of heaven, who has the 
pure Gospel to preach to these benighted, deceived 



PREACHING THE GOSPEL. 387 

beast- worshippers. He cries with, a loud voice : "Fear 
God'' 1 ! "Worship Him"! "Give Him glory"! Nothing 
can be more impressive than this scene. The angel, 
the time of his appearance, his flight, his message, the 
evils against which it is directed, and the effects which 
follow — the fall of Babylon, announced by another 
angel which immediately follows him. 

This angel especially symbolizes, beyond all doubt, 
the Protestant ministry. The time of his advent — after 
the rise of the beast, or Popery, and his war with the 
saints and triumph over the Gospel ; his message, "Fear 
God 11 — this had been transferred to the beast who, in 
the name of God, lorded it over the people — " Worship 
Him;" the beast and his image were worshipped — 
"Give Him glory ;" this had been usurped by the foul 
monster who sat in the Temple of God as God ; the 
flying of the angel, representing haste, energy, zeal ; 
and the success of his mission, the fall of Babylon — all 
demonstrate that this angel typified the preachers of the 
Eeformation and of this day. And who can think 
of the zealous, intrepid Luther; the earnest, faithful 
Zwingle ; the indefatigable Calvin ; the gentle, deter- 
mined Cranmer, and the bold Knox, and the message 
which they heroically, in the very face of the beast, 
delivered, "Fear God" — "Worship Him" — "Give 
Him glory," and the haste, and zeal, and fire with which 
they delivered it, without having before. the mind this 
scene ? And who contemplate the effects which fol- 
lowed the faithful, zealous preaching of those holy men, 
if not the fall of Babylon, the shaking of this great 
city — Bomanism — to its very foundations, without 
being convinced that they were the messengers seen by 



388 END OF THE GEEAT APOSTASY. 

John under the emblem of this flying angel ? But this 
angel is still flying in the midst of heaven ; keeps on 
his way, amid storms or sunshine, for his work is not 
yet done. His clear voice is now heard : "Fear God — 
Worship Him — Give Him glory." Ear after ear will 
catch the sound, and heart after heart feel its power. 
Nations will listen and be converted to God. And the 
hour of the judgment of Babylon the Great will at 
length come, and, as a mighty millstone cast into the 
sea, God will dash her down to rise no more forever. 
"And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is 
fallen, is fallen "/ 

" Where is now her former glory ? 

Where is now her pride and show ? 
One brief day relates the story 

Of her final overthrow : 
Eaise your wailings, kings and nobles, 

Priests and people, rich and poor — 
Babylon is fallen ! is fallen ! is fallen ! 

Babylon is fallen to rise no more " ! 

Civil Government 

Civil government is another instrumentality, in the 
hands of Him who rules the destinies of nations, by 
which the Man of Sin will be destroyed. This is most 
distinctly stated in the seventeenth chapter and six- 
teenth verse of the Apocalypse : 

"And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall 
hate the Whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall 
eat her flesh, and burn her with fire." 

This corrupt woman, the Church of Eome, it will be 
remembered, is represented in this chapter as sitting 
upon the beast with seven heads and ten horns. These 



CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 389 

very horns, or kings, therefore, for a time, give all their 
strength and influence to maintain her usurped author- 
ity and wicked, tyrannical power. Hence, it is said, 
they make war with the Lamb. This contest is now 
being waged. Mighty hosts are marshalled by these 
kings for the onset, and the battle-cry rings amid 
the hills and over the plains of Italy, and Germany, 
and even in this country. Long has been the struggle, 
but the issue is not doubtful. "The Lamb shall over- 
come them; for he is the Lord of lords and King of kings: 
and thev that are with him are called, and chosen, and 
faithful." The means of this conquest, as we have just 
seen, are the Scriptures freely circulated, and the Gospel 
faithfully preached. A free and enlightened press, and 
the system of colportage, are auxiliary of these, and 
materially, greatly aid in the contest. The Holy Ghost 
pours light upon the written page, and attends the 
preached Word with power and demonstration, giving 
success to both. The truth will finally prevail ; and 
these kings will be overcome, converted to God, and 
then they " shall hate the Whore, and shall make her 
desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh and burn 
her with fire." 

The signs of the times clearly indicate that this 
change is not very remote. Hungary, Bohemia, Lom- 
bardy, &c, are ready to throw off the yoke of the beast 
and stand up regenerated and disenthralled. Spain, 
even, shows some signs of returning life. Sardinia is 
leading the van of the kingdoms in Italy, who begin 
to feel the tyranny of Rome and to see her moral de- 
formities, and are preparing to reject her assumed claims 
of unlimited authority. The recent bull of Pius IX., 



390 END OF THE GEEAT APOSTASY. 

declaring her laws null and void, has excited an inquiry 
as to tlie right of the Pope to supreme temporal power; 
and the King and Parliament are convinced that he 
has no right, divine or human, over the temporal order 
in Sardinia. His Majesty rejects his claims and defies 
his thunders. Nor is this all ; he proposes to other 
sovereigns to embrace his views, and to unite with him 
in the negation of this assumed claim.* This will be 
a conquest opening a breach into the main citadel, 
and, according to Brownson, will shake the spiritual 
authority to its very foundations. Moreover, Protest- 
ants, in this realm, are now allowed, under some restric- 
tions, the exercise of their religion, and to build 
Churches, to preach the Gospel, and to circulate the 
Scriptures. Through them, with His divine favor, the 
Lamb will overcome this kingdom, and thence push his 
conquering way over Italy. 

Eevolutions, doubtless, will be overruled by the 
King of kings, to accomplish the purposes of his will 
in overcoming the ten horns, and in destroying the 
Man of Sin. That revolutions will stir to their deep 
foundations many of the kingdoms of Europe and ut- 
terly overturn some of them, the most casual observer 
may read in the signs of the time. Eeligion, or oppo- 
sition to, and hatred of Popery, as a system of intensi- 
fied, relentless tyranny and corruption, will enter into 
and be a controlling element in some of them. "If we 
can only get these French away," said an Italian to the 
Eev. Dr. Murray, on his recent tour in Europe, "we 

* Spain is moving in the same direction. And the government 
of Mexico, under Comonfort, has thrown off the incubus of priestly- 
domination, and is about to adopt a constitution allowing freedom 
of conscience. 



CIVIL GOVEKNMENT. 391 

will show you Americans what we will do. "And 
what will you do ?" said I. He replied in a most en- 
ergetic undertone, "We will establish an Italian repub- 
lic, and the first thing we will do will be to hill off 
these d — d priests, for they are the enemies of the people 
and the spies of despotism? "The next revolution in 
Italy," adds this close observer of men and things, " will 
be a terrible one for the priests. The people have a 
terrible retribution in store for them, and they know 
it." * That revolution will come ; the long pent-up 
fires will break forth at length, and this corrupt Church, 
who has withstood the storms of five hundred years, 
because her time was not yet come, may go down with 
a fearful crash, amid its convulsive throes and the burn- 
ing wrath of God and men. But I will not speculate. 
The doom, however, of the Roman Catholic Church, 
is -written. God has declared that that Wicked shall 
be consumed, that Babylon the Great shall be cast 
down to rise no more forever. And the means of this 
destruction, of this overthrow, he assures us, are the 
Scriptures, the preaching of the Gospel, and civil gov- 
ernment. And these means, under God, are in the 
hands of the true Church, and by her must be employed 
to accomplish His will. How delicate her position ! 
How great her responsibility ! 

When the Man of Sin will be destroyed is not clearly 
revealed. Twelve hundred and sixty prophetic days, 
or literally, years, inspiration declares, will be the life 
of the beast, the term of the apostasy. But when those 
years commenced — when the Church of Borne became 
the beast — for her falling away was gradual — we can- 

* Letters to Taney. 



392 END OF THE GEEAT APOSTASY. 

not fully determine. If in 606, when the Emperor 
Phocus proclaimed the Bishop of Eome universal 
bishop, or supreme Pontiff, and the kingdom of God 
thus became a kingdom of this world, and Antichrist, 
according to the solemnly-expressed opinion of Gregory 
the Great, an infallible Pope, infallible Eome assures 
us: — then in 1866 Popery will be overthrown, that 
Wicked will be destroyed. If, however, Eome did not 
fully fall away till 787, when the second Council of 
Mce decreed image worship, and the veneration of 
relics, and the adoration of saints and angels, and the 
Virgin Mary, thus making her idolatrous, the very 
essence of rebellion against God — then this apostasy 
will curse the world for two centuries more, the end 
will not be till 2047. "Who can tell ? God has revealed 
to us that that Wicked shall be consumed ; the time He 
has reserved in the councils of His own will. The day 
will reveal it. 

It remains now to notice that the destruction of the 
Man of Sin, the overthrow of Babylon, will be sudden 
and complete. This is revealed and most graphically 
described in the eighteenth chapter of the Apocalypse : 

" 1. And after these things I saw another angel come down from 
heaven, having great power ; and the earth was lightened with his 
glory. 

" 2. And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon 
the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, 
and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and 
hateful bird. 

"3. For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her 
fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication 
with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through 
the abundance of her delicacies. 



CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 393 

" 4. And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of 
her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye 
receive not of her plagues. 

"5. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath re- 
membered her iniquities. 

" 6. Keward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her 
double according to her works : in the cup which she hath filled 
fill to her double. 

" 7. How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so 
much torment and sorrow give her ; for she saith in her heart, I sit 
a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. 

"8. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and 
mourning, and famine ; and she shall be utterly burned with fire ; 
for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her. 

" 9. And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication 
and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, 
when they shall see the smoke of her burning. 

" 10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, 
alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city ! for in one hour is 
thy judgment come. 

"11. And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over 
her ; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more : 

" 12. The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, 
and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and 
all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner 
vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble, 

" 13. And cinnamon, and odors, and ointments, and frankincense, 
and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, 
and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men. 

" 14. And the fruits that thy soul lusted after, are departed from 
thee, and all things which were dainty and goodly, are departed from 
thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all. 

"15. The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, 
shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing, 

"16. And saying, Alas, alas, that great city, that was clothed in 
fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious 
stones, and pearls ! 

"17. For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And 

17* 



394 END OF THE GREAT APOSTASY. 

every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as 
many as trade by sea, stood afar off, 

"18. And cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, 
What city is like unto this great city ! 

"19. And they cast dust on their heads and cried, weeping and 
wailing, saying, Alas, alas, that great city, wherein were made rich 
all that had ships in the sea, by reason of her costliness ! for in one 
hour is she made desolate. 

" 20. Eejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and 
prophets ; for God hath avenged you on her. 

" 21. And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, 
and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great 
city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all. 

" 22. And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and 
trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee ; and no craftsman, 
of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee ; and the 
sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee ; 

" 23. And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee ; 
and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no 
more at all in thee : for thy merchants were the great men of the 
earth ; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived. 

" 24. And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, 
and of all that were slain upon the earth." 

In the second verse the angel proclaims u mightily 
with a strong voice 77 that u Babylon the great is fallen ;" 
and to impress us with the certainty and fearfulness of 
the catastrophe, he repeats "is fallen" ! 

Her punishment, as stated in verses 6 and 7, will be 
double that which she has inflicted upon the saints ; 
the cup which she filled will be filled to her double. And 
also, as "she hath glorified herself," exalted herself 
above God and men, opposing the one and trampling 
upon the rights of the other, " and lived deliciously, so 
much torment and sorrow give her" Profound, then, 
must be her punishment, indescribable her woe, un- 



CIVIL GOVERNMENT. 395 

utterable her agony. Deep and bitter the cup of ven- 
geance that she must drain to the very dregs. 

The suddenness and entireness of her destruction are 
announced inverse 8: "Her plagues shall come in one 
day, death, and mourning, and famine ; and she shall be 
utterly burned with fire? And this, too, when she feels 
secure and fears no danger : "For she saith in her heart, 
I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow? 
How expressive of the present position and proud self- 
sufficient spirit of Eomanism ! 

The merchants and merchandise mentioned in verses 
11, 12, 13, &c, symbolize the hierarchy of Eome, and 
the spiritual things of which they have made merchan- 
dise. Their power will be annihilated, and their traffic 
in indulgences, and dead men's bones, and the sins and 
souls of men, come to an end. "No man buyeth their 
merchandise any more? Hence they bewail her, and 
cry: "Alas, alas ! that great city that tvas clothed in fine 
linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and 
precious stones, and pearls! For in one hour so great 
the riches is come to nought?'' 

The utter extinction, the desolation of this Church, 
is described in the simple, clear, beautiful, figurative 
language of the 22d and 23d verses : "And the voice of 
the harpers, and musicians," &c. 

"No pen of mere human genius has ever sketched 
such a picture of the loneliness, the solitude, and the 
death-like silence of a desolate city. No comment 
upon them, no effort of genius or fancy to heighten or 
improve their effect, could do anything but offend their 
chaste and striking simplicity, and impair the awe and 
solemnity with which they inspire us."* 
* "Apocalypse Unveiled." 



396 END OF THE GKEAT APOSTASY. 

The opening verses of the nineteenth chapter peal 
forth the exultant shout of the pure spouse of Christ, 
at the fall of Babylon, the complete victory gained 
over the apostate Church, and at the universal spiritual 
reign of Christ her Lord : 

" 1. And after these things I heard a great voice of much people 
in heaven, saying, Alleluia ; Salvation, and glory, and honor, and 
power, unto the Lord our God : 

" 2. For true and righteous are his judgments : for he hath 
judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her forni- 
cation, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand. 

" 3. And again they said, Alleluia. And her smoke rose up for 
ever and ever. 

" 4. And the four and twenty elders and the four beasts fell down 
and worshipped God that sat on the throne, saying, Amen ; Alleluia. 

" 5. And a voice came out of the throne, saying, Praise our God, 
all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, both small and great. 

" 6. And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and 
as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, 
saying, Alleluia ; for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." 

This scene is laid in heaven ; but heaven, in this 
place, and generally throughout this book, symbolizes 
the Church. The " great voice of much people" cer- 
tainly, is the voice of the Church on earth, who, with 
her Son, has triumphed over all her foes. The prophet 
hurries us away to behold the glory and catch the 
triumphant song of the mighty militant host, gathered 
from all people, the "great multitude" of numbers 
without number, who, "as the voice of many waters, 
and as the voice of mighty thunderings," shout "the 
grand millennial reign." and ascribe all the glory and 
praise of their salvation to God and the Lamb. Fr^m 
the mount of vision we see them, and hear the far-On 
music of voice and harp. With glad hearts we take 
up their chorus and roll back the swelling strains : 
"Alleluia! for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." 



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